EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker was on the CBS Late Movie on June 29 and October 26, 1979; July 17, 1981; October 30, 1987 and February 26, 1988.

Chicago is filled with supernatural murders. This time, the only thing linking the killings of a sleep research center assistant (Elisabeth Brooks from The Howling!) and the chef of Chez Voltaire is that their chests were crushed, and their bodies were covered with Spanish Moss. Somehow, Kolchak learns that the crimes come from the Cajun myth of Pere Malfait, the Bad Father. Only a spear made of gumwood from the bayou can stop the monster, which Kolchak also finds, and then goes into the sewers to again battle the supernatural.

The monster has come to life thanks to the sleep studies of Dr. Aaron Pollack (Severn Darden), and as one of his patients (Don Mantooth) dreams of the boogeyman, the tactics to help him sleep unleash it in the real world. Kolchak comes up against another Chicago cop who wants none of his monkey business, this time Captain Joe “Mad Dog” Siska, played by Keenan Wynn.

The Spanish Moss Monster is played by Richard Kiel, the same bad guy two episodes in a row. The creature is based on a legend of a soldier who kidnaps, rapes and beheads and hangs a Native American princess from a tree. Her spirit becomes one with the tree, and she hunts down the soldier, killing him with the tree’s roots, which have become one with his hair. There’s also a Florida Moss Man legend of a “large man-like beast with a rank odor and covered with swamp grass” that was seen often in the late 1800s.

This was directed by Gordon Hessler, who also directed Scream, Pretty Peggy, Cry of the Banshee and Scream and Scream Again. It was written by Alvin R. Friedman and David Chase.