Movie of the Week: The Norliss Tapes

David Norliss (Roy Thinnes) is a novelist working on a book to debunk spiritualists using the fear and superstitions of others for their own financial gain.  After a year of investigation, he calls his publisher, Sanford Evans (Don Porter) and tells him he cannot write the book and he must see him right away, but never shows up for their meeting and soon after disappears completely.  Sanford goes to David’s home and finds a series of tapes which chronicles his yearlong investigation into the realm of the supernatural. Evans begins listening to the first tape which documents his investigation into Ellen Cort (Angie Dickinson), a widow who believes she was attacked by James, her recently deceased husband.  James, a sculpture artist, had been diagnosed with a rare and incurable disease.  His diagnosis caused him to turn to the occult, looking to heal his crippled and dying body.  In doing so, he acquired a ring that promised immortality, but as such things often do, there was a price to pay for such a gift, a deal with the devil, so to speak.  At first Norliss does not believe that Ellen’s dead husband has come back to life, but he soon is convinced when he sees it for himself. Strange deaths begin to occur in the general area surrounding the Cort estate, baffling the police. Can Ellen and David stop the zombified James before he completes his side of the bargain or will they perish like the others?  Watch and find out!

The movie is fun and has developed somewhat of a cult following. The story is intriguing with a bit of a mystery to unravel as well as some atmospheric creepiness. The performances are good with Roy Thinnes doing a fine job as the skeptical, at first, David Norliss and Angie Dickinson plays the maiden in distress quite well.  I did feel that Nick Dimitri as the zombified James Cort, was a bit too “Grrrr Arrrggg” taking away the horror and making it a little too campy.  The character could have been made a bit more articulate in my opinion.  The special contact lenses used on David’s character were wonderfully chosen. The bright yellow and red nearly glowed compared to the bluish grey tint of the zombie makeup adding a little extra creepiness to the film.  Like most series of its kind in the 1970s, the story moves at a slower pace than what today’s audiences are used to, but I felt it had a good rhythm with the story unfolding naturally and the pacing worked for me.

The Norliss Tapes premiered on February 21, 1973, and was intended to serve as a television series pilot, but the show was never picked up. Each episode would have been a flashback story told through the cassette tapes Norliss left behind.  Written by William F. Nolan loosely based on a story by Fred Mustard Stewart and directed by Dan Curtis (Dark Shadows).  A year earlier, Dan Curtis produced a very similar story on ABC, The Night Stalker starring Darren McGavin as a journalist who investigates supernatural stories.  That movie was so popular that it inspired a 1974 sequel and a single season (20 episodes) television series that ran from September 1974 to May 1975.  The film noir narration is consistent in both The Night Stalker and The Norliss Tapes and the plot premise is also very similar. It does feel like maybe NBC was trying to cash in on the success of ABC’s television movie.