Prowl

En route to Chicago, a bunch of young friends experience engine trouble and stupidly accept a ride from a passing trucker. He traps them in his trailer. Stuff happens. There's some vampire/monster/creature thingies that attack them. Some of the teenagers die. Yadda, yadda, yadda...

I almost rated Prowl 1/10, not because it's particularly awful, but because I've had a gut-full of mediocre modern horror as of late, and this was very nearly the final straw that broke the camel's back—just another forgettable, bland, derivative scary flick with a pretty female protagonist, an unimaginative threat, lots of dreary and often shaky cinematography, predictable loud noises to make you jump, and a 'surprise' ending that's not all that surprising. It's been less than a day since I finished the film, and I cannot recall a single image that impressed me enough to bother retaining it in my mind.

To be fair, Prowl is probably worth a 4 or 5 out of 10 (although I'll err on the less generous side): it starts out promisingly, is technically proficient, the cast do a good job of looking terrified even if I sported an expression of abject boredom throughout, and there's also some pretty effective gore. But in this day and age where horrors proliferate, a film needs to be so much more in order to make a lasting impression.

I first saw this a decade ago on a dvd which I own. Revisited it recently. The film has enuff tension, moves at a good pace n the creature mayhem is scary but the shaky cam n poor lighting ruined it for me. The creatures r similar like the ones from 30 Days of Night. If only they wud have avoided the shaky cam man.

The plot - A young girl decides to leave her old life behind and move to the city after discovering that she was adopted. She asks her best friend to accompany her, and the road trip is eventually joined by a bunch of pals. Unfortunately, their car breaks down along the road and they take help from a truck driver. The group gets jittery when they discover hundreds of cartons of blood n the truck driver refuses to stop until he reaches an abandoned meat-packing plant that is infested with blood thirsty creatures.

Notable face is Bruce Payne as the truck driver.

Amber (Courtney Hope) is surrounded by failing parents and appalling friends. You know the type - alleged teens who are horny/stoned/drunk at all times, with the kind of pack personality you'd expect from such a lowbrow designer catwalk crew. When they end up in the kind of trouble a film with a title like 'Prowl' couldn't exist without, it's difficult to care for such preening twits. They attempt to ditch their former unfulfilling lives by hitching a ride which unexpectedly leads them to no-nonsense Veronica (Saxon Trainor), and her delightfully bloody slaughterhouse. From here, things get progressively more messy and tense.

'Prowl' is good once it gets going and we get past the lazily drawn 'hero' types. It staggers me how obvious it seems to me to make your characters likeable, but that so many directors - Patrik Syversen, here, is one - seem to think that's too easy. Better to make them edgy in the belief that makes them interesting. It doesn't! Or perhaps we are supposed to be aching for them to get dispatched in as gory a way as possible. If that's the aim, then it succeeds.

If you love watching horror movies then this will be fun to watch, Its not ranked up there with the classics, Salem's lot or The Exorcist, but its worth a watch. Only bad thing i can say about it was the ending, it was an anti climax but it does leave it open for a follow on sequel. If you are looking for scantly clad teenagers running around half naked then this is not for you, although the leading ladies are easy on the eye. Gore factor 6.5: Lots of blood in this & a few body parts flying around the movie set.

Scare factor: 6; One scene certainly had me jumping from my seat, but these are BOOM!! in your face flashes & not many off them.

After crashing down on a remote highway, a group of friends find the tow-truck at their rescue is delivering them to an abandoned warehouse to be of use for a group of bloodthirsty creatures in hunting training.

This ending up becoming one of the biggest disappointments around and it really had no reason to do so. There's some exceptionally good times here with the story as it has an awesome premise that's incredibly original which is played off really nicely here. The growing realization of their predicament when they arrive in the back of the truck and the uncertainty of what's coming next give these scenes a really great sense of tension by not adhering to a set pattern. Even once they're released and can go look around in a creepy location filled with pretty chilling creatures, there's some really fun times here as the relentless attacks by the voracious predators come of really fun as the numerous attacks throughout the facility and the surrounding buildings utilizing their speed and agility to launch surprise attacks on the group filled with boatloads of gore, yet instead of playing with this as expected, there's just not a lot of other good stuff here. Among the main flaws featured here is that we have way too much time in the beginning with the group of friends trying to establish their relationship together, and none of this is appealing or enjoyable. That it's all so bland as they hand out and party at the house just goes nowhere and feels endless overall without any kind of real purpose being set-up as a drama about needing to get out of the small town. Even more troubling is that after they arrive at the location, the film's confrontations with the creatures within the abandoned building really tend to stop and start quite readily, dragging itself out in the middle by going through their investigation of the area rather than dealing with the creature encounters. There's a really down-beat sense of energy here when this should be building up furiously during that point and becoming the film's highlight when instead it becomes a dull, dreary mess. There's also the fact that, even if the pacing during these scenes where fine the rapid-fire editing during the action scenes that make it really indecipherable what's going on as the blurry creatures are quite hard to see as well further the rather troubling section. The other flaw to this is that the final twist at the end doesn't help matters by being so ludicrous and really ends up putting the film on a rather confusing note. Too bad, as it doesn't need a whole lot of work to end up pretty awesome.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity and drug use.