Depp Stalks the Night

It's hard to say if this is good news or not so good - I guess, like most things, it depends upon how you see it. According to Deadline New York, Edgar Wright - Director of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and the under rated Scott Pilgrim vs. The Work - is set to team up with Johnny Depp to bring Kolchak: The Night Stalker to the big screen. For those of you too young to remember or know (or really care), The Night Stalker started out as a made-for-TV movie back before Lifetime thought men attacking women is the only subject their movies can have. In 1972 a gem of a flick, simply call "The Night Stalker" was introduced to the American collective consciousness. It was about a semi-buffoonish reporter named Karl Kolchak who takes on the story of what seems to be a serial killer. As these things (like TV movies, theater movies & TV shows) go Kolchak gets further then the police in tracking down the killer and finds out it's a real life vampire. Not a shock in 2012 which is years after Ann Rice gave us Lastat and Whedon gave us Buffy, but in 1972 it was fresh and new and pretty damn fun. This movie was so popular it spawned a sequel a year later - called "The Night Strangler" which involved an immortal who needed fresh blood for his elixir of life. The second movie proved to be as big a hit as the first, therefore spawned a TV series that lasted only one season, where Kolchak took on more vampires, werewolves, cat people, demon cults and even an alien.

An interesting note is that the TV movies were written by Richard Matheson who famously gave us books and short stories we know as some famous and semi-famous movies and TV productions such as I Am Legend, the Shrinking Man, A Stir of Echoes, Nightmare at 20,000 feet, Hell House (known as the 1972 horror classic, Legends of Hell House), Prey (which was done in a Karen Black movie called Trilogy of Terror which features a legendary fight with a tiki doll possessed by a spirit with attitude), Duel - which was Steven Spielberg’s first movie about a man being chased by a truck, Matheson also has a load of movie and TV credits under his belt including episodes of Star Trek and the Twilight Zone.

At to the Night Stalker, it was remade in 2005 with Stuart Townsend taking the role of Karl Kolchak and Gabrielle Union taking the role as the hot chick. (There's a shot of Miss Union walking around in her undies that almost make watching the awful first episode worth the price of admission . . . almost.) Unfortunately the remake had absolutely no resemblance to the original except the character names and the fact it only lasted for a season.

Having Edgar Wright direct the movie and Johnny Depp star in it is a plus, but it is being produced by Disney who tends to be as reluctant as the Wii to move out of producing kiddie fare (or family safe stuff - what ever the hell that means), therefore might not have the edge the two movies and more episodes of the show then not were known for. The Night Stalking had it humor but when the monster was on the screen things got serious. This is a show that deserves an update as well as a CGI bath for its monster. Left hope Depp and Wright don't make the mistake of the 2005 remake and actually watch the original movies and show so see exactly why they worked. Our fingers are crossed.