Before he made  Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and so many more shows, Steven Bochco made Vampire, a made for TV movie featuring so many of the people beloved by this site. This movie is a revelation, as I had never seen it before.

Richard Lynch stars as Anton Voytek, a handsome millionaire vampire who has used his undead power over women for centuries before coming into the orbit of vampire hunters John Rawlins (Jason Miller from The Exorcist, ironically the father of two future vampires: Joshua John Miller played Homer in Near Dark and Jason Patric was Michael in The Lost Boys) and E.G. Marshall.

The vampire’s lair is disturbed when a new church breaks ground, but his hoarded wealth allows him to quickly move up in modern society so that he can hunt down Rawlins, the architect that he blames for being awake.

Kathryn Harrold (who battled vampire bats in Nightwing and Luciano Pavarotti in Yes, Giorgio), Jessica Walter (Arrested Development), Barrie Youngfellow (also in the vampire film Nightmare In Blood), Michael Tucker (who would later be on L.A. Law), Jonelle Allen (who would one day play evil witch Lucinda Cavender in The Midnight Hour), Scott Paulin (who was the Red Skull in the 1990 Captain America) and Joe Spinell (if I have to tell you who he is, please never come back) all appear.

Originally airing October 7, 1979 on NBC, this was directed by E.W. Swackhamer (the original Spider-Man made for TV movie, Terror at London Bridge) and was intended to be the pilot for a continuing series. After all, Voytek escapes at the end.

1979 was a big year for vampire movies, with Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre, Nocturna: Granddaughter of Dracula, Frank Langella’s turn as Dracula, Love At First Bite, Thirst, Salem’s Lot and The Curse of Dracula, which was part of Cliffhangers!, an NBC-TV series that gave birth to multiple made for TV movies that were re-edited from the episodic content like Dracula ’79 and World of Dracula.

This is way more than worth your time. You can check it out on YouTube: