Crackle of Death (1976)

Directed by

Alex Grasshoff

Genre

fantasy film, horror film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 32m

Rating

7.5 of 10 from 2 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This film blends two episodes from the TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Reporter Carl Kolchak investigates strange deaths connected to supernatural forces. New narration and brief additional footage tie the two stories together.

supernaturalepisodiccreepynostalgiclow-budgetmysteriouscampyeerie

What happens

Crackle of Death is a 1974 film, the fourth produced in the Night Stalker film series. It combined the Kolchak: The Night Stalker episodes "Firefall" and "The Energy Eater" with additional narration by Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak. It also contains new dialogue by McGavin, Simon Oakland and Jack Grinnage, as well as new "scenes", such as a newspaper on a desk and the image of the doppelgänger being inserted into old footage (for example, when Kolchak looks at the sky, he sees the doppelgänger's giant face). The new material was put together in late March 1976. Before Crackle of Death was a third movie entitled The Demon and the Mummy that combined two more episodes in a similar manner; namely, "Demon in Lace" and "Legacy of Terror". All four episodes comprising these films were subsequently withdrawn from the original television syndication package. They were not made available in their entirety again until a Columbia House VHS video release in the 1990s. The TV-edited films have never been released on home video. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974)
• Carrie (1976)
• Network (1976)
• Taxi Driver (1976)
• Poltergeist (1982)
• Death at Love House (1976)
• In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
• Crash! (1976)