Investigative
reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) follows a trail of murders in
which the victims are all beheaded by a headless leather-clad biker on a
cherry motorcycle of a make that ceased production some twenty years
earlier. Kolchak's sleuthing reveals that the killer is the
sword-wielding reanimated corpse of a teenage biker hoodlum who was
accidentally beheaded in a prank gone horribly wrong and whose bodily
was hastily buried without its head, and apparently a body interred sans
noggin will rise and exact vengeance, so Kolchak must stay one step
ahead of the this modern Headless Horseman and figure out a way to and
its swath of six-cylinder slaughter.
"Chopper,"
Episode 15 of the short-lived KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER (1974-1975),
features one of the show's more memorable monsters in the headless
biker, though admittedly its practical execution leaves much to be
desired when seen fifty year after the fact and viewed through
60-year-old eyes. KOLCHAK was the one new network TV series that I never
missed during original airings (whenever possible), and to a
nine-year-old monster kid, that show was like manna from heaven. Its
"monster of the week" format would prove its undoing (How could they
hope to keep the series running indefinitely when it's pretty much the
same gimmick every week?), but I ate it up and watched most of its
episodes from the relative safety of beneath the family room's coffee
table. Of the show's many dark antagonists, the headless biker was
always a favorite simply because of how visually disturbing it was when
filtered through my 9-year-old imagination. Sure, it looks like
something from a cheesy carnival spook show to me now, but back in
January of 1975 it was the stuff of nightmares. I would love to see this
story retold with a decent budget and actual super-visceral gore, but
I'll gladly cherish "Chopper" for adding early shades of darkness to my
world.
Vintage TV GUIDE ad from the series' run on THE CBS LATE MOVIE.
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