"The Night Strangler" isn't nearly as much fun as the original "Night Stalker" movie. It seems overly padded. There is a lot of wandering around through dark streets and misty alleys. Kolchak spends what must be a good 15 minutes poking around the supposed lair of the "Night Strangler". I got the feeling that they needed to fill some run time so they had Darren McGavin stroll around a prop warehouse for a while. The meetings between Kolchak and his boss, Tony Vincenzo, practically drive them both insane; the shouting matches are way over the top. The villain is not as attractive as the vampire in the original Night Stalker film.

The final scene is soft, without much of a conflict. Still, the strength of the Kolchak character and his humorously crazed search for the facts make "The Night Strangler" worth watching.