Young men are dying of fright in the embrace of recently deceased women.
An Illinois state college athlete out for a spin one night gives a lift to an attractive young woman. The young athlete is later found dead of a massive shock-induced heart attack with the body of the girl he'd picked up lying next to him. As it turns out, the girl had actually died of a drug overdose before she'd even met the guy.
After a college student dies in the presence of yet another girl who'd pre-deceased him in a freak accident, Kolchak is able to connect the victim to one C. Evan Spate. Spate, a professor of archeology, employed the student as an assistant on a project to decipher the mysterious inscriptions on an ancient stone tablet. This artifact had been discovered in Iraq by another archaeologist who lost his mind after a series of deaths occurred among his party.
Kolchak bluffs his way into Spate's home and snaps a picture of the tablet. When it is later developed, one of the deciphered words on the artifact reads "Succubus".
Elsewhere, a young woman is found asphyxiated in her home due to a gas leak. Moments later, her body mysteriously disappears. That same evening when the Professor's latest assistant shows up at his house, he is accompanied by the "dead" girl- looking very much alive.
Kolchak learns that the original discoverer of the ancient tablet had several young men working for him die under circumstances similar to the recent deaths at Illinois State. He also learns that the word Succubus is the name for a female demoness that takes possession of the bodies of recently deceased women to lure men into it's deadly embrace. One tablet, described in ancient historical text, was said to be protected by such a being.
Carl heads back to Spate's residence. When he arrives, he spots a woman matching the description of the asphyxiated girl slipping away into the shadows. Moments later the girl appears again to Spate's young assistant. Drawing him in for a kiss, her features change into those of a hideous demon. Meanwhile at Spate's home, Carl begins breaking apart the tablet with a mallet and chisel. Sensing the attack, the Succubus withdraws from her would-be victim. The young man gazes in astonishment as the demon changes from a decomposing corpse into a withered old woman who then vanishes.
Back at Spate's home a violent wind causes the study doors to fly open allowing the howling Succubus to enter. As Spate watches in horror, the demon attacks Carl, who continues hammering away at the stone. As they flail about, the stone finally falls to pieces, and the Succubus falls to the floor next to it. Carl watches as her face changes to that of a skull before she crumbles into a pile of dust.
In his closing thoughts, Carl mentions concerning his destruction of the tablet, that the Professor "did not press charges".
Directed by "Night Stalker" vet Don Weis, "Demon In Lace" starts off with a superb jolt as a college stud picks up some late night action. When the guy kisses his date, she then touches his face with a hand that appears as if it's afflicted with flesh eating disease. The "Night Stalker" series had a pretty uneven record when it came to it's creature effects, but this one definitely showcased some of the show's finest makeup work when the beautiful blonde turns into as a repulsive, rotting corpse.
Also creepy are the re-vivification scenes in which young girls, dead of natural causes, suddenly flick their eyes open and silently walk off as vessels for the Succubus.
Andrew Prine (recognizable fixture of seventies television and low-budget drive-in classics like "Grizzly"), plays the unctuous, twitchy archaeologist, Professor Spate. Carolyn Jones ("Morticia" of "The Addams Family") makes an all too brief appearance as the campus registrar. Portly comic Jackie Vernon is somewhat unconvincingly cast as a college football coach, and Keenan Wynn makes a return appearance as Capt. "Mad Dog" Siska. A particularly obnoxious abuser of the right to a free press, Siska issues bellowing commands to Kolchak about what he may and may not print. As he tells another detective, "We don't want this business blown up into another Hindenburg".
The dialogue in this one doesn't seem quite as sharp as we'd come to expect of the series' writers, and few lines seem worthy of mention here. The funniest moment in "Demon In Lace" is not any particular turn of phrase, but, rather the expression on Kolchak's face when after a stealing a campus security man's badge he attempts to conceal it in his jacket. McGavin's considerable ability as a comedic actor is well displayed in the hysterical look on his face when he jabs himself with the badge.
"Demon In Lace" suffers from a somewhat uneven pace, and quite frankly the Succubus- which is a great, original sort of monster- should have had more screen time than she does here. Also, some of the slower, talkier scenes at the INS office could have been trimmed a bit for the sake of pacing.
Worse, during the climatic destruction of the tablet, the succubus's attack is played mostly without the original sound of her assault. Instead, what we hear is mostly just a howling wind, and this distracting mismatch of elements gives the sequence a disjointed feeling that hurts the overall impact of the climactic struggle.
While not quite among the best monsters of the series, the Succubus's method of luring her victims with necrophiliac delights is certainly an interesting and provocative angle. Plus, the occasionally eye-popping makeup effects do provide this somewhat uneven offering with real punch to the audience's collective gut.
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