The Night Stalker

This 1972 made for television movie arguably changed this course of horror history. This pilot would spin into a short lived series, twenty episodes, starring Darren McGavin as the down-on-his-luck reporter Carl Kolchak who has a knack for running up against the darker elements of the night. Here, we have a well crafted Richard Matheson script which follows Kolchak as he hunts down a modern day vampire in Las Vegas. Though the character of said vampire is lacking the hard boiled detective like demeanor of McGavin more than makes up for it. It was always obvious this series influenced X-FILES creator Chris Carter, so much in fact McGavin was used in two episodes in a great fashion which with a bit of imagination would have you think Kolchak had changed his name and become am FBI agent, if he wasn't all along that is. It's a nice sidebar in the X-FILES mythos. THE NIGHT STALKER is easy enough to track down, just make sure you do yourself the service of watching the movie before exploring the series.