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THE
PROWLER
PLOT
In 1945, during a college graduation dance, a young woman and her lover
are violently murdered by an unknown killer. Thirty-five years later the
killer comes back to campus to murder off unsuspecting co-eds when they
try to throw another dance.
REVIEW
If there is an eighties slasher movie that rides on it's gory special
effects, doesn't add up to the sum of it's parts, uses a run-of-the-mill
plot, and manages to come off respectable, it's "The Prowler".
Since my childhood, I've wanted and waited to see this movie; I read the
reviews, listened to the hype, looked at the blood-drenched still photos
from Tom Savini's book, but this movie always seemed to be out of my reach.
After (finally) watching it, I came away feeling, for lack of a better word... disenchanted.
Despite my feelings, and the movie's shortcomings, it is a pretty entertaining
piece of work. It's one of those slashers that deserves a place above a lot
of the average (and less than average) stuff that was coming out around it's
time, but definitely a long-shot from daring to be in the ranks of "Friday the
13th" or "My Bloody Valentine". In fact, "The Prowler" seems more content
with borrowing from the genre than adding anything to it. Thank god that it
stole most of the right elements and snagged Tom Savini to conceive it's more
thrilling aspects.
The story itself is strictly Scooby Doo material. A killer decked out in WWII
combat garb (a nice touch) comes to the sleepy college town of Avalon Bay to
stop a long-dead tradition that most of it's elders would like to forget...but
this does not stop youthful optimism. Enter the blonde heroine, and writer for
the school newspaper, who seems not just content with serving punch, but exposing
some of these demons. She's sort of a Nancy Drew cum Laurie Strode.
Of course, the dance commences despite bad history and doomsayers, complete with
horny youths, spiked punch, and the obligatory rock band (who turn out to be a
little better than most that pop up in slasher movies, and sound a lot like The
Greg Kihn Band...hee, hee...). One of the best scenes in the movie is the one
where the heroine comes back to her dorm room to change her dress, doesn't
notice that her roommate is dead, and THEN has a run-in with the killer as she's leaving.
Great scene that echoes Laurie Strode's run-in with Michael Myers on the staircase.
One thing that is pretty annoying about "The Prowler" is that all of the great
kills seem to happen in the first half; it's about mid-way through that the movie
kind of slumps as the heroine and her boyfriend run around trying to catch the killer.
Honestly, if you watch the first ten/fifteen minutes of this movie closely,
it will tell you all you need to know...there isn't too much of a mystery here.
We're also treated to a lot of false scares, characters that don't really have any
function in the movie, and a bit of dull comic relief. I think they should have
upped body count (or at least, spread it out) and tightened up the middle of the story.
The film does manage to redeem itself in it's final moments with a great and gory
finale...I must also add that there's a very strange (and abrupt) epilogue that
reminded me of the endings of Brian DePalma's earlier suspense stuff...
GORE
Tom Savini really pours on the shit thick! Gory as all hell, but it never becomes
ridiculous and that's why it works. If it's one thing that "The Prowler" will be
remembered for, it will be some of it's murder scenes...the pitchfork is great
(more people should die in slashers this way)...classic scene in a swimming pool...
wonderful bloodbath at the end.
SOUNDTRACK
Yeah, it works well enough...
BOTTOM LINE
The cream rises to the top of an otherwise murky slasher. Definitely worth checking
out, but not the EVENT that some sources would lead you to believe.
Review
By: The Scaremaker
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