The Prowler (1981)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: After the war, prowling was big business. But one man took his prowling a bit too far and murdered some college kids with his prowling pitchfork. Now, here in the early ’80s, the Prowler has returned… for some reason…

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Wait, there was a World War TWO??!
• The Prowler gets a Dear John Prowler letter. Sounds like his sweetheart can’t wait for dick.
• Two youths leaving a dance? Think they’re going to get prowled? I’ve seen a horror movie before.
• They get prowlforked!
• Jump to 1980 and hot pants and hot hair.
• The deputy hero looks like Christopher Walken and Eric Roberts had a baby and left him on the doorstep of a hair salon in San Francisco.

“I told you, Lisa: wash, rinse, THEN repeat.”

• A big slow guy works at the local market and gets glares from the sheriff. Classic Prowler material.
• So the father of the girl who got prowlforked lives next to a sorority house and apparently watches them out the window and pleasures himself to completion.
• The Prowler sticks a stiletto through some dude’s brain and he still struggles for a while. I’m no doctor, but no.
• Then prowler prowlforks a girl in the shower making her boobs jiggle hypnotically while she gushes blood out of her mouth.
• Big dance! The band fucking rocks. They’re like Journey crossed with Bad Company crossed with a dynamite dildo.
• Our heroine, Lisa, goes back to her dorm to change, and Prowler is there and does that slow stalk thing to her, and for some reason no door in the entire house will open properly. Always stupid.
• The pervy old man is outside and grabs her arm and won’t let go. Get some!
• Despite the poster’s tagline, not one drop of blood has been frozen yet.
• The Prowler’s getup isn’t particularly frightening. I don’t understand how he can see.

Roses are red, violets are blue, I can’t see shit, so I’ll just kill you

• There’s a scene where Eric Walken Featherhair (called “Mark” here) and Lisa walk through the old man’s house for 17 hours and yell, “Major Chatham??” 492 times.
• How many incidents of Lisa being accidentally scared by Mark do we need? Apparently several.
• Lisa finds a convenient box full of convenient plot history.
• A prowler warning is made at the dance, but nobody seems to give a shit.
• Some broad takes a night swim by herself in her underwear, as girls are wont to do, and she gets waterprowled.
• Nice effects, Savini. No, seriously! Good job!
• God damn that band kicks ass.
• Trouble at the cemetery says the town creep! Bring the frightened girl along?
• The Prowler is burying girls in the cemetery. That’s nice of him.
• OK seriously there’s a scene that goes on for a few minutes of Mark just waiting on the phone.
• I keep thinking of Judas Priest. “Prowlerrrr! Prowling for meeeat!”

• This movie got real boring real fast.
• Lisa yells at Mark for doing his job as a cop. Shut up, Lisa, you’re useless.
• Just for the record, there are two words I never spell right: sheriff and barrel.
• Back to Major Chatham’s house. Oh goody.
• Wow this just ground to a screeching halt. Grinderrrr!
• Once again Lisa cannot open the front door. Unlock it, dummy. At least the interior doors open for her this time.
• What does a pitchfork have to do with World War 2?

“This was Hitler’s!”

• Oh, the Prowler’s the sheriff.
• Wait, Prowler had a shotgun this whole time?
• BOOM! HEAD! GONE!
• Haha, oh yeah, those bodies are still in the shower.
• The dude who got STABBED IN THE BRAIN grabs Lisa.
• And then the movie just sort of ends.

Is It Actually Scary: There are a few jump scares but if you’ve seen a horror movie before you won’t be that surprised.

How Much Gore: It’s a Tom Savini joint, of course there’s good gore! For example:

Best Scene: It’s pretty wicked when the Prowler stabs the guy through the brain, even though he lives WAYYYYYYY too long for a guy stabbed in the brain:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT3b5XqbQ8Q

Worst Scene: “On Hold” (it’s in another language, Japanese I think, but it doesn’t really matter):

Any Nudity: A lengthy shower scene followed by a kill before she had time to wrap a towel around herself.

Overall: I really don’t have a ton to say about The Prowler. The gore is nice, characters are cliche but not really annoying, but I don’t know, there’s just some element missing here. Not a bad flick at all, just kind of standard. I suppose not back then though. But with 2013 eyes, meh. It’s definitely notable and watchable for Tom Savini’s work, but I just don’t think it’s the hidden gem The Burning is. At least The Burning’s killer had some motivation. I don’t know if I just completely missed the sheriff’s motivation to imitate the Prowler or what, but it seemed like it turned out to be him only for the sake of some semblance of a twist. The kills are very good, but everything else is just kind of a bore that you may as well fast-forward through, and that’s really no fun. At least the Prowler had a good time.

Score: 5.5 hours of life after being stabbed in the brain (out of 10)