Kolchak: The Night Stalker - episode 8 (Fire Fall)

release year: 1974
genre: TV horror/suspense
viewing setting: home DVD, 11/11/05

what Kolchak faces in this episode: A ghost that can start fires in its quest to possess a mortal body.

impressions: This one was stupid. For a (short) while I thought some kind of pyrokinetic maniac was running loose, and then the ghost angle came into play, and I was disappointed. I can believe a ghost trying to possess a body, or I can believe someone who causes other people to spontaneously conbust, but combining the two was silly. Kolchak was also stupid in this episode; if you knew that someone was somehow responsible for being able to inflict unavoidable, indefensible death, why the hell would you approach them and tell them that you knew they were up to something? Death wish? Argh. Another stupidity of this episode: the sleep/church angle of being vulnerable to the ghost. It made no sense and shouldn't have been in the script. I guess that when it rains, it pours as far as bad horror writing.

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