Indian high-rise workers walk off the site of a new hospital after several of their number fall to their deaths. Construction is completed several months later, but the grand opening is complicated by a series of power failures, temperature surges, and mysterious deaths. Kolchak meets with James Elkhorn, a construction worker and sometimes medicine man who tells him that the hospital is built on an ancient Indian site wherein dwelt “Matchemonedo,” a sleeping bear-god. The god’s hibernation beneath the cold waters of Lake Michigan has been disrupted by the hospital excavation, and it is now draining the energy from the hospital and its patients. Kolchak and Elkhorn must convince the authorities to refrigerate the building and return Matchemonedo to its eternal slumber.
written by Arthur Rowe, Robert Earll, & Rudolph Borchert
directed by Alex Grasshoff
music by Gil MilleGuest Cast: John Alvin (Dr. Ralph Carrie), Robert Cornthwaite (Dr. Hartfield), Tom Drake (Don Kibbey), Ella Edwards (Receptionist), Michael Fox (Frank Wesley), Elaine Giftos (Janis), Barbara Graham (Laurie), Melissa Greene (First Girl), Dianne Harper (Second Girl), Joyce Jillson (Diana Lanier), John Mitchum (Janitor), William Smith (Jim Elkhorn), Michael Strong (Walter Green), Robert Yuro (Captain Webster)
Notes: Currently exists as half of the TV movie Crackle Of Death. As in They Have Been…, the monster is invisible and thus never seen except a brief glimpse on X-ray plates. Captain Webster also appears in Legacy Of Terror, but is played by actor Ramon Bieri…who played Captain Baker in Bad Medicine.
LogBook entry by Steve Crowe