The Prowler

To me, "The Prowler" is a lot better than any other early eighties slasher flick out there. The Tom Savini FX are excellent and very bloody. It all has to do with a phantom slasher dressed in combat fatigues stalking teenagers at the graduation dance. This is fast-paced for the first half, but then it slows down a lot until the exciting finale. Vicky Dawson is an attractive heroine, and the twist ending and nightmare sequences are first rate. Slasher fans should love this!

I'll get this off my chest - the first 30 minutes of The Prowler are basically slasher heaven. I really mean that. The atmosphere is there, the characters aren't that bad, the killer is imposing, the kills are brutal and nasty...but then...(sigh) things just fall apart and don't get semi-exciting again until the last 10 minutes.

The Prowler might be so wonderful in its first act, because it starts off like most slasher flicks end. By the time its first act has wrapped up, it seems as if already a half-dozen people have been offed and our Final Girl to be has already had a fairly exciting chase sequence.

Sounds great, right? It is. But then she's saved and the rest of the film is spent with her and a policeman doing Scooby Doo-esque detective work in old houses with flashlights with brief interludes of death scenes during a graduation party. It just stops everything in its tracks.

This is not to say that The Prowler is a bad movie. Far from it. It just needed something more exciting and urgent in it's middle section to keep the audience interesting. One never feels like the two leads are in any danger and that drag it down. Still, the special effects steal the show and are wonderful.

I first saw this in the early 90s on a vhs. Revisited it recently. This one is another slasher with a lousy twist but the best part is the eerie settings of that of a sleepy town. Another best aspect is the special effects by Tom Savini.

The second kill is the most gruesome. This film has one of the best head exploding like a watermelon scene.

Ther is a scene where a man shoots the killer and he keeps on staring n smiling at a babe and the babe too keeps staring n smiling inspite of enduring trauma. The same killer survives the bullet shot n it is never shown how he survived.

THE PROWLER maybe isn't a milestone in the slasher-genre, nor is it innovating in any way, but it certainly is one of the better teen-slasher-movies of the 80's. It has what it takes: Tension, a high body count, gore, nudity and a decent (though not really original) story. I'd say it even is almost on par with Friday THE 13TH PART I. Almost, I say, because Friday THE 13TH had an original twist in the end. In the case of THE PROWLER you'll probably guess the identity of the killer way before the final 'unmasking'-scene.

The plot is straightforward and easy to follow (like almost every slasher-flick). The prologue is a bit strange (black & white documentary footage of soldiers coming home from the World War II), but it's necessary to provide the killer's background-story. The first killing takes place in 1945 during a homecoming-party. It appears the killer had personal motives. He was never caught. Then, almost 40 years later, a new town's party is being organized and the killer picks up his old habits (and weapons).

On the bright site, THE PROWLER has a lot of killings, and therefore lots of bloodshed. All the make-up & blood-effects are masterfully executed by Tom Savini (with the ultimate high-light being an exploding-head shot). The killer is pretty creepy with his military outfit (including a German-like war-helmet) and uses various weapons (a pitchfork, a big army-knife, a shotgun,...). The fact that he doesn't speak one word during his attacks adds to the scariness. What also raises THE PROWLER to an effective and above-average slasher-level, is Joseph Zito's directing, the acting and the over-all atmosphere. Thankfully this movie doesn't include teenagers playing stupid jokes on each-other, a phenomenon slasher-movies too often suffer from. At a few moments Joseph Zito's directing even reaches levels of tension like in Carpenter's HALLOWEEN (no, it's not as good as HALLOWEEN but it has its moments). It's also nice to see that when leading girl Vicky Dawnson for the first time sees the masked killer, she doesn't ask obvious things like "Who are you? What are you doing here?". No, see looks at him, and when the killer stares back at her, silent and motionless, she immediately senses the danger and starts running. Further more, there are at least two jump-scenes that really work (always a good thing in a horror movie, but you might wanna turn up the volume) and I thought the roses were a nice touch.

It was also a nice surprise to see a slasher-movie that knows the rules of the genre and dares to break a few too (you figure out which ones yourself). I applaud Joseph Zito and Tom Savini for a job well done, and I feel sad about the fact that THE PROWLER seems to be a bit under-appreciated. So, come on all you slasher-fans, seek out this movie and boost its rating here on IMDb to a higher level.

The Prowler is an overlooked horror film from that golden age of slasher films of the late 70s and early 80s. The film is directed by Joseph Zito who has special effects wizard Tom Savini to thank for the film's best scenes. The two also teamed up for Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (part 4), and that film is a superior effort to this one.

The Plot of this film is very similar to My Bloody Valentine. We have a brutal act of violence taking place many years ago. We have the first big social event scheduled in several years on the very grounds where the trouble took place. And we have a spooky killer chopping up victims left and right. Only instead of full mining gear, our Prowler is dressed in WWII era military fatigues.

The gore is by far the best thing this film has going for it. There are some DISGUSTING killings which look very much like they could be the real thing. Our killer loves to use his bayonet, a pitchfork, and a sawed-off double barrel shotgun on his victims. Most of the killings in the version I have are not mere snippets of knives piercing flesh. You see the killer slice and penetrate these victims until they aren't breathing any more. There is a tidal wave of blood spilled in this film. They saved the best for last, when we see just what a blast from a shotgun at point blank range can do to someone's face. (I would not dream of revealing the victim's identity here!) The film has some glaring dead spots, too. Lawrence Tierney who is billed pretty highly makes such a short appearance you wouldn't believe it. Character development is nearly non-existent, and the motivation behind the carnage is not defined by any logical means. Let me put it this way; I have absolutely NO IDEA why the killer committed these murders. I wonder if the writers even knew.

Gore fans will definitely need to see the uncut version of this film at some point in their lives. It's like a golfer having to play a certain course he heard is interesting before he dies or a skier having to try a certain slope. That kind of thing. See this film out of a sense of duty, but don't expect a true classic.

6 of 10 stars from the Hound.