The basic plot is taken from the Night Strangler TV movie, with Stephen Tobolowsky playing Titus Barry, a character portrayed by Wally Cox in the original.

Carl: (opening voiceover) In nature, predators cut off their prey from the pack. Leaving them vulnerable, easy to attack. Modern society values independence, the strength to stand on our own, to make our own way. Forfeiting not only the comfort of home, but the bonds of family and community. But in our isolation, we become weak… perfect victims.

Alex: But whatever it is, it’s some mean-ass thing that chomped straight through her face and into her brain.
Perri: And you’ve been able to determine that, but the coroner in charge of the case hasn’t, because…?
Alex: Because.. he lacks imagination
Perri: Or maybe you have too much of it.

Carl: It chewed through her cartilage and bone, eating into her brain.
Perri: So you’re saying it was that hungry, why go to all that trouble?
Carl: And if it wanted to kill, why kill that way?
Perri: You ask the most interesting questions, you know that, Kolchak.

Titus Berry: Let the other scurry about, gathering their contemporary bits of gossip. Research. That is where the joy lies, and the fascination.
Carl: What did you find, Mr. Berry?
Titus Berry: Oh, the impatience of youth. I have found something on the “In-ter-net” or the World Wide Web, where historical events are erased from memory if no one is there to record them digitally.

Titus Berry: Los Angeles history. Remember it, or be doomed to repeat it.

Perri: The first murder occurs 1900.
Jain: Right.
Perri: When this man would be, let’s be conservative here, 10.
Jain: Right.
Perri: So he’d be… 115 years old now. Going around killing women in his walker.

Mr. Reed: So who killed the women?
Perri: We don’t know, but they died terrible deaths, Dad. I mean, something bit through their faces into their brains.
Mrs. Reed: Nice dinner talk
Mr. Reed: Every one of these women, the killer consumed the brain matter?
Perri: Apparently, yeah.
Mrs. Reed: Must we continue talking about this over dinner?

Carl: (closing voiceover) The past has endless stories, about tragedies that have struck those who’ve come before us. A history of tears. But nature remains indifferent to our suffering, offering only a cold, hard truth, one that becomes harder to bear the more we learn to love living. That at the very moment life first pumps through our veins, the clock is set... to stop.