The Hidden Horrors of the Seattle Underground

Kolchak!

Last week, I managed to find a copy of the out-of-print DVD The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler, two early-70s TV movies starring Darrin McGavin as intrepid investigative reporter Carl Kolchak.  These were both ABC Movie(s) of the Week, and the first one was the highest-rated TV movie of its time (hence the sequel). Stalker has Kolchak on the trail of a vampire in Las Vegas, but the second one is more interesting to me, because he's after a sort of undead being that lives in the Seattle Underground and is killing young women in Pioneer Square!  It's pretty rare to get to see a horror movie set in the city where you live (though in Seattle we have another good one -- The Ring).

Here are some of the local details and mistakes I liked best about it:

J.Pflug!

• The first victim of the strangler is waiting at "St. James" street at 3 am for a bus to her home in the "Shoreline Park" neighborhood, after she finishes her gig at a strip club in Pioneer Square.  In reality, it would be James street (or 3rd Ave, really) and the Shoreline neighborhood.  Also, good luck catching a bus at 3 am in Seattle.  And I'm not sure why she would live so far from her job--why not get a place that isn't 12 miles away?
• Another dancer at the club, (played by Jo Ann Pflug), is a student at the UW (a scene is filmed in the Red Square!), and lives on a houseboat, like every fictional person who lives in Seattle.  She takes a motorboat to get to her classes--I guess walking or ride a bike along the Burke-Gilman trail is too mundane.
• There's a scene a bar where all the Seattle journalists are alleged to hang out.  This is a fictional device, but it was fun to speculate what this could be--the bar at Vito's, or Victor's 610, or (more dive-ily) Bernard's on Seneca, a place that seems to reek of 1972.
• The founder of the Seattle Underground tour, Bill Speidel, makes an appearance in a scene filmed in a Pioneer Square bar call the Blue Banjo, which was a real place (I had to google it during the movie to find out).  Later it was called Doc Maynard's (and now seems to be closed, except as a starting point for the Underground tour).
• There seems to be some filming in the real Seattle Underground....
• ...But the final scene takes place in an entirely fictional and huge fantasy version of the Undergound, with tall buildings and a working wrought-iron elevator.  I learned from Wikipedia that it's the interior of the Bradbury Building in Los Angeles.  It's kind of steam-punk (if you will), and it's the way you wish the Underground would be, if you've ever taken the tour.

I highly recommend The Night Strangler to anyone who likes goofy horror movies and has lived in Seattle.  Good luck finding it!