Too much of everything

Crappy film

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

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.

If you're making a list of must-see 80s slashers, The Prowler should definitely be one of them. Yeah, the plot isn't all that great, the pace of the movie drags in places, and several questions ultimately go unanswered - but I was genuinely surprised at the identity of the killer (who is pretty intimidating in his killing garb), the lead actress is fairly cute, and - as is always important for us gorehounds - I was absolutely delighted at the spectacle of blood and gore on display. The filmmakers really let makeup/special effects genius Tom Savini go hog wild. Where other slasher movies give you a quick cut shot of a knife slicing a neck open or a pitchfork going all the way through a body, The Prowler lingers deliciously on such gruesome sights. You get to see that last little convulsion as he raises a skewered body up, with the tines of the pitchfork scraping against the tile; you watch him working his knife back and forth as if he has trouble removing it from his victim's neck - it's these little details that show you just how much Savini cares about his gruesome craft. Admittedly, one death is wholly and patently fake, but you still have to appreciate the effort and intent of the shot.The story begins in 1945, when a young woman and her beau are ruthlessly murdered on the night of the big college graduation dance; while their killer was never caught, it is made quite obvious that the murderer was the young woman's former boyfriend, to whom she had sent a Dear John letter while he was still fighting overseas. 35 years later, the college prepares for the first graduation dance since that awful night

This 1981 horror film stars Vicky Dawson, Christopher Goutman and Farley Granger. This begins in the 1940's during World War II where a young woman, Rosemary has just written an upsetting letter to her lover ending their relationship. Soon, she and her date are killed by him at a graduation dance. Thirty years later, the same killer wears a war outfit while hunting a group of college friends at a graduation dance. Dawson plays Pam MacDonald, Goutman plays her boyfriend, Mark London who is a Deputy Sheriff and Granger (Strangers on a Train) plays Sheriff, George Fraser. This isn't bad and Tom Savini's make-up effects are great as usual. If you like horror/slasher films, you should view this one.

Released in 1981, The Prowler never got the recognition of its peers. Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine and Prom Night all went on to pop culture familiarity spanning countless sequels and eventual remakes. Yet the Joseph Zito classic about a masked World War II army gear wearing slasher remains nothing more than a footnote in the annals of horror history.And that is unfortunate. For not only does The Prowler exhibit some of make-up effects artist Tom Savini's best work, but it also might just be the best slasher film released in the glory days of the early 1980's.Opening after the conclusion of World War II where a couple is brutally murdered, the film forwards 35-years to present day (1981 present day) where a group of college kids are preparing for an annual spring dance. Mysteriously, the fatigue donning killer reappears and using his weapons of choice (a bayonet and a pitchfork) he begins his night of terror that will leave the small New Jersey town soaked in adolescent blood.A slasher film is routinely graded on the graphicness or originality of its kills. And The Prowler delivers the bloody goods thanks to the aforementioned Tom Savini. A pitchfork puncturing shower scene, a pool throat slashing and the shotgun blow to the head were arguably three of the best kills of The Prowler's era – and era that included Friday the 13th sequels, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween II.The story itself is horror routine. But the execution by director Joseph Zito (Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Invasion U.S.A.) is brilliantly choreographed in a thrilling and exciting film that holds up as well today as it did over 30-years ago. The Prowler was produced for $1 million but was self-distributed by Zito therefore relegating the title to the background of VHS rental video stores. But now that it is available on DVD and blu-ray, the title should be sought out by anyone who wants to be considered an authoritative voice on the genre.www.killerreviews.com