Vampire

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S2 (Vampire)

Were vampires popular in the late 70s? Were there lots of vampire films? Were there books about vampires and a hunger for these fantasy creatures, just as there is today? They've always held a fascination for the entertainment media, many TV series have had an episode dealing with the subject - even the great literary figure of Sherlock Holmes had a story about vampirism ('The Adventure of The Sussex Vampire'), which makes it interesting that the only pop culture reference I got from this episode was Hutch mentioning The Great Detective. Personally I've never been interested in vampires beyond the initial creepiness of someone dangerous out in the dark, and revulsion for blood-sucking, as, to me, vampires usually come across as silly. The one in this is no exception, which is why the episode, if not falls apart, has its creative juices sucked inexorably from it.

Another example of the series' avoidance of continuity, Hutch is back to chatting up girls in bars even after such difficult experiences for him in the previous two episodes. We don't know how long after 'Vendetta' and 'Gillian' this is set, but after the double impact of those episodes it would be nice to see Hutch staying away from potential romance for a change. This isn't the creative juice-loss I was thinking of, it's just another little niggle gleaned from watching the episodes regularly and in order. Something this episode can claim is being the first bona fide horror episode of the series - I've mentioned in previous reviews that once or twice we've had elements of this sub-genre-to-be in the first season, and one or two this season, but this is the first to really go for it, and like Starsky trying to convince Hutch of the legitimacy of preparing for a real vampire, the episode tries to posit the idea that in this real world of crooks and gangsters, there's room for the mystical, mythical and fantastical. In that sense it's a laudable effort to expand the boundaries of what the series could encompass, and would set us on the road to the ultimate example of the sub-genre when Season 4's 'The Avenger' rolled sinisterly around. But this time it doesn't work.

For one thing the atmosphere tries to become evil and horrifying, but apart from the scenes of Rene Nadasy standing, gothic-like in front of a none-too-brilliant painting of his dead wife Maria, and being all theatrical to his audience of candles, none of that translates into the encounters with him on the streets. I think they shot themselves in the foot (not a reference to Nadasy's leg injury, honest!), by telling us who the 'vampire' is and what motivation he has very early on, so there's no mystery except for how and why this seemingly ordinary dance teacher with an apparently gammy leg becomes a fearsome bloodsucker by night. In this regard too, there's no saving grace for the character or story - it turns out that he's just a little bit insane. One moment I did love from the episode is when Nadasy, awaiting the arrival of his prey to the theatre, flings himself about the stage in full vampiric clobber showing his dance background and the madness that envelops him (though you can tell it's not the actor, so presumably they had a proper dancer in for that). It's probably the purest vision of the character in the entire episode and that utter violently exultant insanity is displayed so gracefully that it does give the character the dimension the rest of the episode needed to create the mood they were going for, and made me think of the moment in 'Batman Begins' when child Bruce is taken to the theatre to see bat performers flying round the stage.

The rest of the scenes featuring Nadasy are as a seemingly sane and highly expert dance instructor at his own Rene's School of Classical Ballet, with a roster of two hundred students, or as the caped maniac running the dark streets attacking young women, or escaping the police by jumping across buildings. Admittedly, that moment when he escapes Hutch's pursuit by flinging himself from rooftop to rooftop and leaving doubt in his wake in the usually rational mind of Hutch, wasn't bad, although Hutch's assertion that the man flew doesn't bear out what we saw of him, basically falling, albeit his cloak flapping out behind him and providing some wind resistance which is how he doesn't A. die, and B. can still walk afterwards! The only bridging scene between the two personalities is when he loses focus, concentrating on choosing his next victim out of the young ladies in his class, who all stare at him waiting to be given the next instruction or for him to put the needle back at the centre of the record.

In the first attack I noticed the attention to detail in the way they lit the fountain Honey Williams walks past so that it looks red like blood, but the actual attacks, with this man running along in a Count Dracula costume just looked silly. Obviously at that time on TV they couldn't get away with showing much, so there's no actual blood on his face or indication of death except when Hutch runs over and pronounces the other girl dead. I'm not saying I wanted gore or overt nastiness, but a little trickle of red stuff on Nadasy's face or the girls' necks wouldn't have gone amiss! The other thing that brings the episode down is the unnecessary insistence on bringing in a number of occult references. They've done this before with Ezra ('Terror on The Docks'), last season - I'm surprised Starsky didn't get his weird book of facts out! There were moral lessons to be learned so I suppose something good does come out of the inclusion of such things for a change: one is that both Guybo, the magician or whatever he was, and Slade of Slade's Cave, are shown to be charlatans, tricking people out of their money - it's a living, claims Slade (though he didn't look like a man with a six-figure bank account unless he was referring to the combination!), calling his weird customers 'suckers' for believing in the satanic rituals he arranges for them.

This extends to Nadasy himself who was one of Slade's customers and though it's never confirmed we hear S&H's theory that he 'flipped out' because of these rituals. Obviously he already had a couple of reasons to be straining his sanity because of losing his beloved wife, and also the bitterness over losing a promising career in theatre after damaging his leg in 1961 when he was with the National Company. I'm not sure Nadasy's story holds up to scrutiny, though: if he really did damage his leg beyond repair and his career was over, then how would he be able to fling himself about rooftops (or on stage for that matter), clearly a very fit and healthy specimen for his age? But if he never really did damage his leg, or it was superficial and he quickly recovered, then why didn't he take up this illustrious career where he left off if he was so good? Maybe he did take damage and it put him out of the running for a little while and by the time he'd recuperated others had taken his place? That would go further to explain the bitterness. Maybe he always had a propensity for violent outbursts and rage which triggered the insanity (did he kill his wife?). Either way it's another warning against getting involved with nasty rituals and dodgy stuff, so both the danger to a person and the danger of being taken advantage of are covered, both good lessons to be taken from it.

Something else that detracted from the episode in some ways, but also made it the only reason worth watching were the laughs to be had - S&H are on form here, whether it was Starsky reacting to Hutch's laughter at his superstitions by throwing his piece of garlic in Hutch's guffawing mouth (which would go on to be used in the opening credits, eventually!); S&H arguing loudly about the existence of vampires in front of an office of bemused fellow detectives; the slapstick of both Supergnat and Hutch being squashed into a door at different times by Dobey; even Huggy's suggestion that there could be different denominations of vampire (e.g: a crucifix for those of a Christian persuasion, a hammer and stake for all the others!); and the banter about Hutch putting in the request for information on Nadasy under Starsky's name so as not to appear foolish for suspecting him though he uses a walking stick - it's all good fun, but doesn't do much to create a strong horror mood. Lightening things up only to throw the audience into fear and doubt can be a strong force in horror, I believe, but there's no roller-coaster of contrast in different tones so it doesn't work here except to give us something to enjoy beyond the gloom and slow realisation of S&H about who the murderer is, which we the audience already knew, long before. 'The Avenger' did it much better, making it seem like there was something going on that wasn't, all the more creepy for it.

I mentioned Huggy, and although he's pretty much in his usual role as comic relief, he's also back in his rightful place as the patron of a bar and restaurant, the Play Pen. It actually belongs to his cousin Louie who's out of the country to, get this, visit his frog ranch in Venezuela, though Hug admits he left after the IRS found some irregularities. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be the same cousin (Marco The Magnificent), Huggy was keeping place for in the first part of 'Murder At Sea,' but if not he's got a lot of cousins. I thought Louie was the slightly dense relative who helps him in 'Huggy Bear and The Turkey,' but I'll have to wait until I get to that one, to see. Although Huggy's back to his old tricks of trying to sell tat he does get more screen time than usual in this one and seeing him in charge of an establishment again just made me wish he could stay in that role, his natural habitat. It's also good to see Captain Dobey used for something - he's not in it as much as Hug, but he has a mission to talk to the DA about a deal with Slade to find out if one of his former customers could be the vampire, which is more than he usually gets, sitting behind his desk. I don't know whether it was because it was shot from a different angle or whether his office had been refurbished, but the place didn't look quite the same as usual.

Dobey's love of food rears its head again when Starsky leaves him his sandwiches which he can't eat after hearing Dobey and Hutch discuss the gory murders, to which the Captain is delighted - nothing can put the man off his nosh, although I seem to remember an episode where he was too distracted to eat, though I can't remember which it was! The thing where Hutch outmanoeuvres his partner so he can talk to the girls, Bobette and Jane, happens a couple of times again, as does the confusion over names which gets an added dimension: Starsky says the girls' names the wrong way round (no, I'm Bobette, she's Jane), so they respond in kind ("I'm Starsky, he's Hutch"), then the other girl gets their first names mixed up so Hutch says "I'm Ken, he's Dave," so a good little play on that running joke. This episode's running joke about Starsky remembering their phone numbers didn't amount to anything as it was obvious he was going to forget, and it didn't really run very far, either.

I wonder how Dobey was able to track down S&H to Huggy's cousin's place on their night off? Maybe that's why he's the Captain and they're just detectives… A thought struck me about vampires: how do they avoid biting their own lips, having those sharp teeth sticking out so much? I also feel like they get the same troupe of background extras whenever there's a sequence of people dancing, this time at the Play Pen, though I didn't specifically notice the usual blond couple! Locations that stood out to me were that the coroner's lab was the same set seen before in 'Vendetta,' so maybe we'll see more of that. And the Playhouse Theatre where Rene's dance class was held looked very similar to the Royal from 'Gillian,' though the inside was completely different, so it was likely unconnected. In terms of the oddities there were few - Nadasy was seriously messed up so he wouldn't fit into such a lighthearted category, and nor would Guybo, who, although weird, was putting on an act and you could tell was really a shrewd businessman playing on people's superstitions. So the only true weird characters were Supergnat and Slade's spaced-out girl, Linda Offenbecker (actress Suzanne Somers had previously played Sally Ann in 'Savage Sunday'). Supergnat was by far the oddest, being a short man dressed in an outfit reminiscent of Superman's, though he was a bit mixed up as he was being a villain! He could probably be nominated for weirdest character this season…

This was such an unmemorable episode that the only thing I remembered from it (apart from there being a loon shooting around as a vampire, obviously), was Starsky saying "two outta three ain't bad." Turns out that wasn't what he said, and he wasn't the one to say it anyway! It was originally Supergnat who said "one out of two ain't bad," which Hutch later quotes after Nadasy has plunged to his death, failing to reach another platform or rope, or whatever he may have been aiming for, though when you watch the stunt he looks like he's just falling, not reaching. It shows how forgettable the story is, and although I'm not wholeheartedly against it, it probably does still rank as the worst episode so far, a record previously held by Season 1's 'Death Notice,' though I liked that a little more on this run. The mix of devil imagery and occult references, a story that doesn't go anywhere, and a lack of required tension that means it never gets going even in the chase scenes, makes this a poor episode which even the various comical moments can't save.

While vampirism fits with Starsky's interest in the weird, there's little rhyme or reason, stuff just happens. I suppose there were attempts to do something artistic, such as the red-lit fountain or the students of Nadasy dancing round the camera, or Nadasy himself seen through the circle of dancers, so you can say they were trying. The ending was stolen from 'The Las Vegas Strangler, Part II' where they chase Eugene in the upper reaches of a casino - a good rule of thumb is to never turn up to a darkened theatre when asked to do so on the phone by someone you've never met! Just as happened in 'The Las Vegas Strangler.' That ending wasn't bad, with a struggle between S&H and Nadasy, followed by a high fall. This was the series' first proper foray into a horror episode, but, just like Nadasy, it falls far short.

*