TheProwler

The Prowler (1981)

This movie opens up in 1945 where a masked killer is seen doing away with a local girl and her boyfriend during a graduation dance. 35 years later the school decides to finally have another dance, the first since the killings. Guess what happens? A masked killer in WWII era fatigues shows up and starts doing away with the local kids again. As the body count grows it is up to a deputy and a coed named Pam to figure out who the killer is and how to stop them. Of course they need to do this without becoming victims of the killer themselves.

There were a ton of these slasher flicks in the ‘80s and the Prowler is one of them that sort of came and went without much fanfare. And if I’m going to be entirely honest I was never that big of a fan of the movie, even after I picked up the DVD of it a few years ago. That started to change the last few times I watched the movie, including this time around on the new Blu-Ray from Blue Underground.

The biggest issue that I’ve had with the Prowler was that I’ve always thought the story was weak. The plot is pretty thin and the movie doesn’t do a great job of establishing the killer. The identity of the killer has always bothered me as well. Did no one ever figure out who might have wanted to kill the original girl (Rosemary) and her boyfriend? I mean as the story is played out and we find out who has been carrying a torch for her all these years it seems pretty obvious. So the idea that no one has a clue who the killer was has always bugged me. But this is way less important to me then is used to be, primarily because I’ve come to appreciate some other things about the movie. The story is decently paced and filled with plenty of red herrings to keep you guessing. In spite of having seen the movie 10 or 15 times now I still find myself paying attention to what is happening on screen. This is further helped by the slasher “formula” being followed by having a kill every few minutes. I also dig that this is one of the few slasher movies that you watch someone sneak off, thinking they are going to get killed, only to find out that it really is just some pervert spying on them. Little things like this sort of make the movie for me.

Now one thing that I’ve always loved about the Prowler are the incredible special effects. And I do mean incredible. The effects here were handled by the maestro himself, Tom Savini, who was on top of his game. We are treated to some great kills in the Prowler. There are a couple of great pitchfork killings, a knife thru the top of someone’s noggin, a nice shotgun blast, and my personal favorite the pool killing! Yeah I know I’m pretty bloodthirsty, but I do love some great kills in a slasher movie and the Prowler delivers them. In my opinion Savini’s work here in the Prowler matches any of his work from the Friday series and in some ways exceeds it. Though I’m still partial to his Romero collaborations.

As I’ve already mentioned I watched the new Blu-Ray of the Prowler from Blue Underground. Included on the disc is a cool “home movie” of Savini and his crew at work doing the special effects. This is a must for any fan of the man’s work and I had a blast with it. There is also a very cool commentary on the disc with both Savini and the director Joseph Zito that is worth checking out. It is one of the better ones that I’ve listened to.

So why has my opinion on the Prowler changed so much over the years? That is a question that I asked myself. I think what might of happened is that the first few times I watched the Prowler I had basically only checked out the very best of the slasher flicks. Compared to Halloween, the first few Friday movies and something like The Burning the Prowler doesn’t look that good. But since I’ve started the site I’ve seen so many of these movies, including some terrible movies. So I guess what I’m saying is that it took seeing some really bad movies for me to realize what the Prowler does well. I want to encourage everyone to go out and give this one another look, you might just be surprised. For more information on where you can pick up both the new Blu-Ray and the DVD release of the Prowler head on over to http://www.blue-underground.com/

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer