Kolchak: The Night Stalker
“The Get of Belial”
We here at KTNS, otherwise known as ICHH (icch!)
are well aware that Moonstone Comics rendered adaptations of the two most
“famous” unfilmed KTNS teleplays, “Eve of Terror” and “The Get of Belial.” But our aim is to present a more
unvarnished look at the script pages that do exist, with
particular bias toward Kolchak’s encounters with his stringers or his INS
cohorts — two of the most recurrently popular and enduring aspects of the
series.
Unlike a standard KTNS episode, Kolchak’s voice-over doesn’t
intrude until page five (page three of actual scenario). The January 3rd, 1975
revised draft was written by Don Mullally, one of the six writers who cobbled
up “The Devil’s Platform,” and “Belial” brings Kolchak face-to-face once again
with a hellish, or Hellish, antagonist.
As we FADE IN to an unnamed town in “West Virginia Mountain Country” …
ACT ONE
EXT. ASSOCIATED ANTHRACITE BLDG. – DAY
Observed by a laconic patrol car, a tatty group of miners is
conducting a STRIKE, picketing the main office. KOLCHAK is seen keeping pace with one of the pickets, taping
away.
KOLCHAK
You look for the strike to go on much
longer?
PICKET
No way. Mine
owners are caving in all over the state – except for this mother. With the pressure he’s gotta be getting
from the other owners, how long can he hold out?
KOLCHAK
You’re talking about Glenn Maynard, president of
Associated?
PICKET
Yeah, that s.o.b. …
As they speak, MAYNARD pulls up in a station wagon, warning the
pickets he’ll plow right through them if they don’t move. The pickets begin to rock the car and
pound it with their signs. Police
chief ROD PEOPLES debarks and saunters over. He’s young, soft-spoken but authoritative, and he
effortlessly pushes several of the pickets away from the car.
PEOPLES
You don’t want your union to have to buy a new paint job
for Mr. Maynard … right? Just cool
it now, hear?
KOLCHAK
(VO)
That was the scene in Winship County, West
Virginia. Labor trouble in the
mines wasn’t breeding nobility on either side. Tempers were worn to the breaking point. It was ugly. But what was moving into Winship County would make
the strike seem like a wedding party.
BEHIND Kolchak, an ancient pickup truck groans into view,
towing a dilapidated box trailer.
The bed is loaded with belongings and furniture, covered by a tarp. On top of this tottering heap sits TOM
BLACKSHEAR, a bearded young giant in solid denim. Shoulder-to-shoulder inside the cab sit RICHARD BLACKSHEAR,
his mother SARAH, and her husband HENRY, who drives, working a cheekfull of
snuff. Richard gives directions to
the outskirts of town, where an abandoned coal company hamlet sits, dead and
boarded up. The Blackshear truck
parks behind a rural, one-room schoolhouse — the largest, best-preserved
building in the shanty town.
SARAH
Looks nice, Richard.
TOM
We oughta be okay here ‘til they come with the
bulldozers.
HENRY
Won’t be doin’ that while the strike’s on. Be okay for your boy.
SARAH
Our boy, Henry …
They have come to the barren basement of the schoolhouse and
peer down into darkness.
HENRY
(to
Richard and Tom)
Give me a hand with it.
The men unhitch the box trailer and back it up to the cellar
door. They TILT it downward, then
STRAIN against a large, bulky, burlap-covered object. UNGODLY CRIES AND MOANS issue from beneath the tarp, which
falls askew long enough to reveal a thickly-barred CAGE. The men hoist the cage into the cellar
and begin “walking” it toward the far wall. Sarah is almost beside herself with anxiety.
HENRY
Watch it now … watch your hands, Richard!
A HAIRY CLAW with taloned nails pierces the burlap and
fastens onto Richard’s arm. As he
screams in pain, Henry smacks the claw with a broken chunk of timber as Sarah
rushes in. She reprimands Tom and
moves to the cage, making a peculiar, cooing, maternal sound. The claw relaxes and Richard recoils,
clutching his bleeding arm.
ACT TWO
KOLCHAK
(VO)
October 2nd, 1:30 A.M. Glenn Maynard, mine executive, was on
his way home after a long day at the bargaining table. He was about to lose the most important
negotiation of his life … get a package deal, with death as the bottom line.
Maynard avoids the pickets as he drives home but “something”
is watching him as he moves toward his porch. In one giant, ungainly bound, Maynard is attacked. To the sounds of “tearing, rending
death” we see his chewed cigar stub roll across his driveway.
INT. SCHOOLHOUSE – DAY
Tom Blackshear discovers the EMPTY cage in the basement, the
hasp on its heavy-duty padlock twisted out of shape.
HENRY
Woulda swore no livin’ thing could bust that lock.
SARAH
Must’ve gotten out last night. I had a dream … I was praying … and the Lord came to me …
Sarah is interrupted by a LOW, VICIOUS GROWL. The family turns to see the “Creature”
framed in the doorway – matted hair, deep-set glowing eyes, fanged and
lumbering. The male Blackshears
are clearly repulsed, but Sarah goes to the Creature, touching its shoulder and
leading it back to the cage.
SARAH
You’ve come home … you’ll be all right now …
HENRY
Get him settled. Me and you’s going into town. See if we can find out what he did this time.
EXT. MAYNARD HOUSE – DAY
Kolchak snaps photos of DEAD MAYNARD. Peoples is present, as is newly-widowed
CLAUDIA MAYNARD, in near hysteria.
She interferes with the morgue men, clearly distraught, and her friends
are unable to restrain her. From
the Blackshear truck, Sarah comes to intervene.
HENRY
Sarah … now you stay out of this, you hear?
SARAH
I can’t.
That lady needs me.
Claudia pitches a fit, trembling and rigid on the ground. Unhelping spectators gather ‘round but
it is Sarah who kneels at Claudia’s side and touches her forehead.
SARAH
Lord, heal this woman, thy child who is heavily
burdened. Free her of her torment.
Claudia slowly relaxes.
The watcher’s are amazed by Sarah’s apparent healing power. Claudia smiles up at Sarah.
But back at the schoolhouse, the Creature goes into a FRENZY in
its cage.
TOM
Oh, hell – listen to him!
RICHARD
Yeah, Ma’s done the Lord’s work again and he’s all wired
in. Maybe we can stop him this
time.
They enter the basement, Richard leading with a cattle
prod. The cage rocks back and
forth and suddenly EXPLODES open, the door driving both men back, the Creature
LEAPING over them to freedom.
EXT. TREE-LINED LANE – DAY
KOLCHAK
(VO)
Al and Gracie were ideally married …
to a couple of other people. They
simply lived for these little mid-day trysts, those long walks in the
piney woods, hand-in-hand, to their secret place …
AL and GRACIE have wandered down to a grassy knoll by a
meandering stream. They are about
to hit the dirt when Al spies a pair of eyes watching them from the shrubs,
red-rimmed and menacing. A POUNCE,
and Al is smashed down as Gracie FLEES.
In two bounds the Creature catches her, dragging her down as she
SCREAMS.
KOLCHAK
(VO)
Today, those stolen moments that they lived for were to
be the death of them.
ACT THREE
INT. VINCENZO’S OFFICE AT INS - DAY
Outside the El rushes by, shaking the entire building.
VINCENZO
(yelling)
Kolchak – I can’t hear you! Sounded like you said you wanted … combat pay?
KOLCHAK
(inside a
phone booth)
You heard me, Tony – this town is a powder keg and some
nut is playing with matches! Three
people killed, and I’ve got a feeling that’s just for openers. You getting all this, Uptight?
Across the office on an extension, RON UPDYKE is making notes
with his usual expression of annoyance.
UPDYKE
(to phone)
I have the names, ages, and occupations of the three
victims. Your description of the
bodies, which, parenthetically, our papers will not print … and I have yet to
hear anything about the progress, or lack of it, in the strike negotiations.
VINCENZO
Yeah, Kolchak – people up here want to know what a ton of
coal is going to cost this winter.
KOLCHAK
If this war breaks open down here, they can start praying
for a mild winter!
UPDYKE
Well, we certainly can’t expect our papers
to print that, either!
KOLCHAK
Write anything you want, Uptight, just don’t make it
sound like it belongs on the financial page!
UPDYKE
I will remind you that coal is very big in our economy!
KOLCHAK
And I will remind you that Vincenzo is paying for this
long-distance phone call. Besides,
I’ve gotta to go a wake …
(he hangs
up)
Ron picks up his pad and makes a huffy exit. Tony throws a Chicago phone book at the
wall.
INT. BRANNIGAN HOUSE – DAY
KOLCHAK
(VO)
Al’s widow, Joni Brannigan, was taking it. She was a miner’s wife; her father was
a miner. Death wasn’t that much of
a stranger in her life.
Al’s
COFFIN takes up most of the living room.
Kolchak moves around a huge buffet setup, systematically helping
himself. Chief Peoples suggests to
Joni his theory that the killer hid in the back of Al’s car as he picked up
Gracie for a “ride home.” That the
killer “forced” Al to drive to the lonely spot. That Gracie’s husband was himself another “victim” of the
mine – wheechair-bound, “dead from the waist down.” Kolchak approves of Peoples’ effort to cover for a
potentially nasty situation, actually complimenting the cop:
KOLCHAK
Chief, that was a very kind thing you did in there. Mrs. Brannigan had to wonder what Al
was doing out there in the piney wood with another woman.
PEOPLES
(shrugs)
Could’ve happened just like I said.
Sarah
Blackshear enters the wake long enough to leave a covered pot, which Kolchak
sniffs. When he tails her outside,
he gets a good look at Richard Blackshear, driving the pickup truck.
EXT. POLICE STATION – DAY
Peoples conducts a press conference.
PEOPLES
I want you to know that I’ve talked to both sides, union
and management. Told them to cool
it or I’ll be on the horn to the Governor – bring troops in here.
KOLCHAK
Chief, maybe you’re talking to the wrong people. These killings could have nothing to do
with the strike.
PEOPLES
I say they do.
KOLCHAK
How do you explain the fact that all the victims died the
same way – killed by a hand pick, according to you.
PEOPLES
Ever hear of “an eye for an eye?” Maynard’s killer set the pattern.
KOLCHAK
I’ve heard of it, but how come the score is four eyes to
two?
PEOPLES
(shrugs)
The girl was a witness – they had to kill her too.
Peoples
discourages Kolchak’s attempts at further poking. Outside, Kolchak notices the Blackshear truck and copies its
Pennsylvania license number before he encounters both Richard and Tom
Blackshear in the Associated Anthracite picket line. They are sullen and unhelpful, but Kolchak notices Richard’s
injured arm, remembering the slashes seen on all the victims.
KOLCHAK
(VO)
Pennsylvania DMV gave me a make on the pickup. Registered owner, Henry Blackshear,
Hamilton, Pennsylvania. Hamilton
was another mining town. Something
in my gut told me that wasn’t all it had in common with this part of West
Virginia.
INT. HAMILTON POLICE STATION – DAY
Kolchak quizzes local police chief WOODRUFF.
KOLCHAK
You said there were some similar
killings – how many?
WOODRUFF
Five.
KOLCHAK
No arrests?
The case is still active.
Kolchak sees photos from the case file. The string of deaths ended on August 22nd.
KOLCHAK
(VO)
I wanted a reading on the Blackshear’s old neighbors –
what kind of people were they? The
neighbors gave them good marks.
Sarah – Mrs. Blackshear – was a living saint. She could heal people even after regular doctors gave
up. All she had to do was pray and
touch them! All the neighbors
remembered the murders. None of
them seemed to pick up on the fact that they started shortly after the
Blackshears moved to Hamilton … and stopped just before they moved on.
Kolchak sneaks a phone call to MISS EMILY in the INS office,
asking her to investigate mutilation murders in Appalachia during certain
dates. But Vincenzo approaches her
desk in time to hear:
EMILY
Yes, Carl … yes, Carl …
VINCENZO
That Kolchak?!
(he grabs
the phone from Emily)
KOLCHAK
Whatever you do, sweetheart, don’t say anything about
this to Tony.
VINCENZO
(livid)
Anything about what, Kolchak?
KOLCHAK
(solemn)
We wanted to surprise you. Miss Emily’s meeting me in Miami. We’re getting married!
Kolchak quickly hangs up to a strangling sound at the other end.
KOLCHAK
(VO)
Dear old Miss Emily came through for me, but not in
Miami. Her telegram was waiting
for me at the hotel. Quote:
“Following communities report similar incidents, et cetera, “ unquote. One more piece filled out the puzzle,
then it was Chief Peoples’ baby.
At the local union office, Kolchak inquires about the
Blackshear boys’ recent transfer.
But ROY KETTLE is not about to give a reporter confidential
information. When he lunchbreaks
at a pool hall where the Blackshear boys are watching the action, he mentions
Kolchak to Tom and Richard. As
Kolchak storms out of the union office, the Blackshear pickup buckets past and
Kolchak tails it. Tom notices the
rental car dogging them.
TOM
What d’we do about that?
RICHARD
See what happens when I make out turn. Lots of places we can wait for him, if
he’s tailing us.
Kolchak sees them, too, and drives past, continuing for
about a quarter-mile or so before wheeling around.
KOLCHAK
(VO)
It looked like a trap. If I ran into that rathole after them … goodbye. I gave them fifteen minutes to decide
they weren’t being followed … come
out. They didn’t. So along came Kolchak.
Wary, Kolchak drives up to the shanty town. Smoke wisps from the schoolhouse
chimney. He sees signs of
habitation but no one seems to be around.
Mattresses, tables, chairs.
A fueled Coleman lantern. A
warm pot of stew on the stove, which Kolchak samples – not bad! In the basement, Kolchak finds the broken
cage. The basement doors
SLAMS. In the sudden darkness,
Kolchak is SKULLED by a blunt instrument and BLACKS OUT.
RICHARD
Hey, Pa!
Open up!
Richard thumps the door with said “blunt instrument” and Henry
OPENS the door from without, revealing Kolchak unconscious on the floor.
ACT FOUR
Kolchak regains consciousness inside the now-ABANDONED
schoolhouse. He goes directly to
Peoples, but Peoples shoots him down:
The Blackshears have moved on, yet there has been another attack.
On the road, at night, Sarah and Henry Blackshear argue in
the cab of the truck:
HENRY
I’ve had it, Sarah!
We’re through running, hiding.
If he comes back, or if we find him, we’re going to the police. Take the consequences.
SARAH
Henry, he’s our flesh. He might change back the way he was. It’s our cross …
HENRY
It hasn’t happened.
It’s not going to happen.
Even you have to know that, now.
Peoples and Kolchak, speeding one after the other to the
scene of the latest killing, roar right past the Blackshear pickup, stopped on
the shoulder. Kolchak is torn
between the two but decides to stick with Peoples.
They boy of a young mining couple has been attacked. Not dead, but in terminal shock, with
wounds identical to those of the murder victims.
Without so much as a by-your-leave, Sarah Blackshear waltzes
in and performs another of her “miracles” on the injured boy.
But a few blocks away, a crippled young woman watching
television is confronted by the Blackshear Creature when it smashes through a
side window of her home. It yanks
her from her chair as she screams for her husband, HARRY. Harry comes piling into the room toting
a Winchester. He shoots the
Creature at least three times and it retreats, howling, into the darkness.
Kolchak HEARS the shots and sprints toward their
source. He is bowled over by none
other than the fleeing Creature, which batters him aside as Harry’s slugs
pepper the air over their heads.
ACT FIVE
Peoples is intent on organizing a posse to track down the
wounded Creature, and ignores Kolchak’s plea to confront the Blackshears, who
are getting back in their truck to drive away from the scene. As the truck moves away, Kolchak runs
after it – finally leaping lightly into the rear bed.
(Now there’s a miracle – unless all four “normal,”
still-living Blackshears are all piled into the cab – DJS.)
Hounds baying in the distance, the Blackshear Creature
(unencumbered by its bullet wounds) lumbers back to its latest hiding place
seconds after the Blackshear truck precedes it. It is an abandoned mine. Weathered signs read MINE CLOSED. NO TRESPASSING.
VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
ASSOCIATED ANTHRACITE, INC.
As Henry helps his wife down from the cab, his hand comes
away bloodied. Sarah bleeds from
places identical to where the Creature was wounded.
SARAH
(matter-of-factly)
It’s the blood of our son. He’s been shot, Henry.
Kolchak tails them through a mine shack and into a primary
shaft. The boards that once
secured it now hang askew. Then
Kolchak feels a rifle prodding his back.
TOM
(using
flashlight)
Hey … you’re the cat who was asking all the questions.
KOLCHAK
You got me.
They approach a vertical shaft – a big hole in the floor of the
tunnel. Tom shouts down:
TOM
Pa! Hey,
Pa! Caught a guy foolin’ around up
here! Sendin’ him down!
KOLCHAK
How?
TOM
There’s an iron ladder. Move! And don’t
try anything funny!
KOLCHAK
You mean we couldn’t use a good laugh?
Several levels DOWN, the Blackshears have set up
housekeeping once again. Other
tunnels fan out from the black wall of the chamber into which Tom ushers
Kolchak.
HENRY
(cold-eyed)
What’re you doin’ here?
KOLCHAK
I was looking for the Blackshear family.
RICHARD
You found us.
KOLCHAK
But you’re not all present. Where’s the one you usually keep in a cage?
SARAH
(sighs)
Sonny. Our
youngest boy.
HENRY
Shut up, Sarah!
SARAH
No. You said
we hid him long enough.
KOLCHAK
You did say you kept your son in
that cage?
HENRY
I don’t care what anybody thinks. We done the best we could.
KOLCHAK
But the cage couldn’t hold him … nothing could. And he killed people when he got away.
SARAH
(nods)
Because of me.
My call to do the Lord’s work.
It was Belial’s way of tempting me.
KOLCHAK
Belial? The
Devil?
SARAH
Yes. Sonny
was a beautiful child. Then the
changes began. I was healing the
sick, as my God commanded.
KOLCHAK
Those changes – how did you know it was the Devil?
RICHARD
Old Belial offered Ma a deal. We all heard it.
The voice out of nowhere.
Scared the hell out of us!
We could have Sonny back just the way he used to be … if Ma’d just get
off the salvation kick.
KOLCHAK
And you couldn’t buy it?
SARAH
Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. I had to believe that God was stronger
than the Devil.
TOM
(rushing
in)
Pa! Cops up
there! All over! And dogs, coming this way!
HENRY
He’s led ‘em to us … we’re getting out of here.
KOLCHAK
How?
HENRY
(indicating)
Air shaft.
About a quarter mile down that tunnel. Me ‘n Richard checked it out; open all the way to the
surface.
Henry decides to keep Kolchak with them, but when a shower
of rocks and debris rains down, Kolchak escapes back the way they came. Richard starts to chase after him.
HENRY
No! We’re
getting out of here while we can.
No way he’s going to find his way back without a light.
As Kolchak gropes his way back to the chamber, the Creature
leaps down from the ladder.
Peoples and his posse are firing shots down, from above. Kolchak circles the room like a
prizefighter playing the ropes, but the Blackshear’s youngest get is upon
him. Kolchak pulls a ratty
mattress over himself for protection and suddenly realizes he is not longer
being attacked. The Blackshear
Creature has gathered Sarah’s blanket to its face, and is momentarily
acquiesced. Kolchak slowly makes
for the ladder … climbing gently up …but the dog-barks coming from above snap
the Creature back to reality. It
LUNGES. But Kolchak pulls up his
legs at the last second and the Creature grabs empty space, FALLING into the
deep shaft below. It HOWLS all the
way down.
Peoples descends the ladder.
PEOPLES
Kolchak, what are you doing down here? You gotta have an answer, and it better
be a zinger.
KOLCHAK
Chief, you told me to get away from you – far away. I tried.
PEOPLES
Where’s whatever it is I been chasing all night? Dogs tracked it here. Did you see anything?
KOLCHAK
Yeah. More
than I wanted. That scream you
heard – it tripped.
PEOPLES
I want a gurney down here. All the rope we can get. We’ll lower it a level at a time.
KOLCHAK
All right if I go with you?
PEOPLES
How long’s it been since you climbed a mile?
They DESCEND.
When they finally reach bottom, Kolchak’s hands are blistered, frozen in
a grasping attitude. In the beam
of Peoples’ flashlight we see a HANDSOME YOUNG MAN – crushed, wearing the rags
of the Blackshear Creature.
PEOPLES
You call that a monster? I’d like to know what in hell is going on!
KOLCHAK
I’ve got to hand it to you, Chief, you’re in the territory. Hell is where it’s at.
INT. VINCENZO’S OFFICE – DAY
As Tony pounds his fist on the desk in his usual high dudgeon.
VINCENZO
I sent you to cover a strike in the mines. And where were you when the strike was
settled?
KOLCHAK
About a mile underground. But it was a coal mine, Tony.
VINCENZO
Big deal!
Every wire service in the country scooped us!
KOLCHAK
Sorry. But the strike settlement wasn’t the big story.
VINCENZO
(acidly)
Tell me.
KOLCHAK
(wearily,
shaking his head)
Are you ready to accept a living Devil … Satan … the
Prince of Darkness?
VINCENZO
I have to, Kolchak.
I hired you, didn’t I?
(then,
bellowing)
Out! Get out
of here!
As Kolchak recoils, we FADE OUT/END.
#
David
Chase recalled “The Get of Belial” for Mark Dawidziak’s Companion
as requiring “expensive location shooting,” but that’s not really germane. The rural setting and mining towns were
pre-thought to make use of Universal’s standing Western backlot sets, and it
sure would have been nice to see some of the scenes shot using the legendary
Bronson Cave location in nearby Griffith Park.
A
stronger speculation is that the religious content was a turn-off. God – in God’s typical looky-loo role –
doesn’t do much to ease the Blackshear’s pain, even while Sarah Blackshear is
easing the pain of everyone around her.
Sonny
Blackshear’s fate was also identical to the fate of Myra Deckbar in “Eve of
Terror.” Splat — now
they look normal — end of story.
Sonny
probably would have been depicted as another of KTNS’ “monster hairbags,” which
again raises the puzzle of who actually did the makeups and
monster suits that were seen during the series run. I can find no such credit anywhere, nor has anybody stepped
forward to claim it.
Discuss.
# # # # # # # #
