Elderly citizens are being feasted upon by an evil spirit capable of assuming the appearance of anyone it's victims know and trust.
Kolchak goes to Roosevelt Heights, a rundown neighbourhood where an elderly security guard is found chewed to pieces- allegedly by rats. When two more residents of the depressed area are discovered dead and partially eaten, Kolchak follows a tip from a nervous resident, Harry Starman, who insists that the owner of a local East Indian restaurant is the killer. Starman bases his charge largely on the fact that the owner has painted swastikas all over the back alleys of this predominantly Jewish neighbourhood.
When Carl sneaks over a fence to have a closer look at the premises, Starman spots what looks like Kolchak coming towards him. Seconds later, the old man's cries bring the real Kolchak back over the fence where he discovers Starman's shredded remains.
Carl later returns to the restaurant where he encounters the elderly East Indian proprietor. Armed with a crossbow, the old man cries out "Rakshasa!" and fires an arrow at the startled reporter who promptly flees.
Looking into the lore of Eastern culture, Carl learns the swastika is also an ancient Hindu symbol meant to ward off evil, and that the "Rakshasa" is a carnivorous entity endowed with the ability to lure victims by assuming the appearance of friends and loved ones.
When Vincenzo refuses to print a story proposing that a Rakshasa is haunting Roosevelt Heights, Kolchak ventures back to the restaurant where he again meets the proprietor. The old man explains that he'd fired an arrow at Carl thinking he was the Rakshasa. Warning the reporter to leave, the ailing senior hands him the crossbow and blessed arrows, and cautions Kolchak not to trust anyone he may run into.
As he leaves the restaurant, Carl spots someone approaching him: Miss Emily, his elderly friend from the newsroom. Miss Emily claims she followed him there to gather information for a book she's writing. When Carl warns her to come no closer, the old woman continues to approach him. Next, with some reluctance, Carl fires an arrow into her. Suddenly Miss Emily disappears and in her place stands the Rakshasa in it's true form: a large, hairy creature with long claws. The beast clutches the shaft of the arrow and lets out a bellowing roar before falling to the ground dead.
In his summation, Kolchak mentions he would have liked to have told Miss Emily that the Rakshasa had appeared to him as her because that meant that he trusted her. But he elects not to, guessing she wouldn't have appreciated hearing he shot an arrow into her.
"Horror In The Heights" contains a fair bit of social commentary about the plight of low income seniors trapped in conditions of urban decay. Kolchak, as usual, is committed to getting his story as well as ridding the world of another monster. At the same time however, he seems genuinely concerned about the residents of this rundown neighbourhood. After a disrespectful young cop says of one of the elderly victims, "the old guy croaked", Carl comments, "you have a nice choice of words; you expect to escape old age?" When the cop advises Carl not to look under the sheet covering the corpse, the big city reporter informs him, "Son, I've seen more dead bodies than you've had TV dinners."
Writer Jimmy Sangster (who penned the screenplays for the British Hammer classics "Horror Of Dracula" and the equally brilliant "Brides Of Dracula") comes up with an especially evil monster in the form of the Rakshasa. Giving it the power to make itself look like anyone an intended victim trusts is a brilliantly sinister touch that leads to one of the best scenes in the entire series when Carl appears to shoot his friend, dear Emily Cowels (played by the delightful Ruth McDevitt). Of course, Kolchak only does this because he had reason to be suspicious, and as it turns out, the Rakshasa was, indeed, concealing itself behind the old lady's sweet countenance. Still, it's rather startling to see Miss Emily punctured by a steel arrow and then turn into a hairy monster that drops dead before an amazed Kolchak.
There's some fine makeup design in this episode, too. Resembling a clawed Sasquatch, the Rakshasa's face reveals just enough human detail to register an effective look of shock when it realizes Carl's seen through it's deception.
Phil Silvers nicely plays the excitable Harry Starman who meets his end when he sees the ersatz Kolchak approaching him. Abraham Soefar is both sympathetic and believable as the dying old Hindu who's come to this rundown neighborhood to track his last Rakshasa.
It's fair to point out that, at times, Michael Caffey's direction is a bit uneven. For example, some shaky hand-held camera work is rather distracting, and in the scene where the false Sgt. Devito approaches a victim, his outstretched hands are held so low that rather than seeming menacing, he looks more like he's trying to show off his manicure. Still, Caffey mostly succeeds in his orchestration of this very scary, unsettling tale.
One puzzling matter: after the climactic scene in the alley, it appears Kolchak has a dead Rakshasa to confirm his story. So with such startling evidence, how come he isn't shown finally getting that long over-due Pulitzer Prize? Still, despite this small loose end, "Horror In The Heights" is an excellent episode that- in addition to it's chills- also reveals a surprisingly warm and caring side to the usually cynical, wisecracking Kolchak.
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