Horror TV: Shocking me right out of my brain

(Main): “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”. (Top left): “Route 66”. (Bottom): Vincent Price in “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”.

“Kolchak: The Night Stalker” is the archetypal 1970s television horror show. Darren McGavin plays Carl Kolchak, a Chicago newspaper reporter investigating the supernatural and paranormal. It’s the show “X-Files” creator Chris Carter credits as his inspiration.

The memorable moment of the series comes when Carl prepares for the destruction of zombie, Francois Edmonds.

Carl makes his way to the rotting zombie’s resting place, an antique hearse in a car wrecking yard. He fills the zombie’s mouth with salt and threads the needle to sew the lips shut. Suddenly the eyes of the zombie awake. It is the scariest moment of my televisual childhood. It’s the first of the ‘70s TV monsters that will haunt my dreams.

The midnight-to-dawn movie marathons on TV back in the ‘70s featured ‘50s sci-fi films like “The Giant Claw” (a huge mutated chicken), and American made-for-television horror shows.

“Trilogy of Terror” is one of these anthology adaptations. Comprising three short stories by celebrated supernatural writer Richard Matheson (“Duel”, “I Am Legend”), it’s the instalment entitled “Amelia” that everyone remembers.

Actress Karen Black is alone in her apartment, at war with her recently purchased Zuni doll. The sharp-toothed and spear-carrying ancient artefact has, unbeknown to her, the spirit of an ancient hunter trapped within.

Around this time. I’m also introduced to the horror icon Vincent Price. Maybe it’s a school holiday screening of the film “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein”. Or did I fall into the terrifying late night lair of “House of Wax” or “The Abominable Dr. Phibes”?

Price is also blaring out of transistors, providing a monologue on Alice Cooper’s album, “Welcome to My Nightmare”. When the Brady boys try to return the supposedly cursed Tiki to the ancient Hawaiian burial ground in the family vacation episode of “The Brady Bunch”, Price appears as Professor Hubert Whitehead. The archaeologist holds the boys captive, as he mistakenly believes they are rival academics out to steal credit for his latest discovery.

Gourmet Vincent and his wife, Mary, are also busy producing cookbooks. YouTube is now full of his audio cookbooks, culinary lessons, and the classic 1975 appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson.

Here he demonstrates how you can prepare steamed trout with lemon, dill, parsley and scallions, by wrapping it tightly in foil and running it through your dishwasher on full cycle. Just remember – no soap powder, and no rinse cycle!

Price’s creepiest television appearance of the era is on Irwin Allen’s (“Lost in Space”, “Land of the Giants”) “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”.

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He plays puppeteer Professor Multiple on the futuristic adventure sci-fi series set aboard the nuclear submarine, the Seaview. The Professor comes aboard to perform a puppet show for the crew. He “accidentally” remains on the sub as the crew set sail, and his puppets come to life. The little terrors assume the appearance and personas of commanders Admiral Nelson and Captain Crane. As the Nelson doppelganger chillingly warns, “Puppets don’t die!”

A lighter contrast to this performance is one I recently discovered on YouTube. It’s Vincent appearing with fellow horror movie legend Boris Karloff (Frankenstein’s monster in the classics “Frankenstein”, “Bride of Frankenstein” and “Son of Frankenstein”) on “The Red Skelton Show” in the late ‘60s.

They emerge from behind the curtains together in a golf cart converted into a hearse, duetting on a version of “The Two of Us”, with appropriately ghoulishly amended lyrics.

(As an aside, my favourite piece of non-cinema trivia regarding Boris is that he was the long serving wicketkeeper in the Hollywood Cricket Club. Imagine facing up to Larry Olivier with Boris breathing down your neck behind the stumps!)

This leads to my favourite television homage to the golden era of film horror. “Route 66” is an American road drama from the early ‘60s. The two leads, Tod and Buz, drive the US highways going town to town solving the problems of strangers they meet – imagine a human version of “The Littlest Hobo”.

In the episode “Lizard’s Leg and Owlet’s Wing”, they are working as guest liaison officers at a Chicago motel convention centre.

The two group clients they have to chaperone are the executive secretaries of the mid-west, and horror legends Karloff, Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr. The horror trio are there to discuss a television show they are pitching.

Lorre wants to stay within the classic Gothic genre, Karloff is thinking it’s time for new “adult” horror. Tod suggests the secretaries, also staying at the motel, provide the perfect test audience to see if the old ways still terrify.

If it’s all just an excuse for the three horror legends to ham it up and get the band together, who really cares?

Lorre (later John Kricfalusi’s inspiration for the voice of Ren Höek in his animated series, “Ren and Stimpy”) is self-effacing enough to play up to the idea that all he has to do to frighten people is enter the room.

Seeing Boris in the Frankenstein make-up again is a real treat. Chaney suiting up and reprising his characters The Wolfman, The Mummy – and his father’s Hunchback of Dame – is both hilarious and a reminder how terrifying his characters can be.

There’s so much 1970s television horror for us to revisit. From the gothic soap “Dark Shadows” to the mini-series “Salem’s Lot”. The werewolves and time-travelling 17th century witches of “Hammer House of Horror”, and the ominous click-clicking of the approaching carnivorous plants in the BBC adaptation of John Wyndham’s “Day of the Triffids”.

So much of modern television horror is psychological. Inter-dimensional demonic entities like Bob in “Twin Peaks”, and alt-right gangs and clowns in “American Horror Story: Cult”, maraud the contemporary landscape. 1970s horror will have you closing your curtains after watching … because you know those characters will always be out there!

“Kolchak: The Night Stalker” is available on SBS On Demand. “Route 66” is available on Amazon Prime.