Ha ha, Burl here to review another one of what some call the
Classic-Era slasher movies! This one has a bit of a pedigree to it, or at least
a retroactive pedigree if you follow me! It’s called The Prowler, and was directed by the same fellow who later made Friday the 13th part 4! It
also features some gruesome trick effects by Tom “The Burning” Savini!
It’s a pretty typical slasher picture in many ways, though
the inciting incident takes place a little farther back in history than most! World
War II has just ended, and here we are at a college dance being attended by
Rosemary Chatham and her new boyfriend! Her former boyfriend was a GI whom she
broke up with by that time-tested method, the Dear John letter! Only this John
isn’t so dear, and he uses a pitchfork on poor Rosemary and her toffeenosed
beau!
Thirty-five years after this horrific incident it’s time to
bring back the dance! Ha ha! Pam, a blond newshound, is our main character, and
her boyfriend, The Deputy, is meanwhile put in charge of public safety as the
sheriff is goin’ fishin’! Ha ha! The crazy kids go ahead with their dance
preparations with the same single-minded devotion as the kids in My Bloody Valentine, and pretty soon the
prowler of the title, brandishing his trusty pitchfork and a sharp bayonet,
goes on a one-by-one rampage of brutal pokings!
There’s meanwhile a gallery of middle-aged men available to
suspect of being the killer, including but not limited to an irritable
shopkeeper, a lumbering oaf, and old Major Chatham, played by Lawrence Tierney
from Silver Bullet and The Horror Show! Ha ha, the Major is
mute and wheelchairbound, but he keeps popping up in all sorts of places, no
matter the terrain, just to show that he can get around when he needs to! Ha
ha!
In so many and varied ways, this picture is a goofnugget!
The pokings are particularly vicious, particularly a pitchfork poking that
takes place in a shower; but at the same time, potential victims like Thom Bray (the bicycle nerd from Prince of Darkness) and his ladyfriend,
appear to be in some sort of basement peril while on a search for a makeout
cavern, but then they just disappear! Ha ha, I suppose they were next on the
list, but there was no time to shoot their death scenes!
And this has got to be the worst picture on record for dumb
decisions made by the characters! What do a policeman and his intrepid lady
sidekick do the moment they realize a madman killer is loose? Why, head over to
visit old Major Chatham of course, and wander around in the dark! And of course
The Deputy, evidently no brain wizard, immediately suggests they split up! On top of
this, there’s a long sequence in which The Deputy, phoning the Sheriff's fishing lodge in an attempt to ask him what to do about the local madman, is foozled by a tubby desk clerk on the other end of the line, who only pretends to go look for the vacationing lawman! This twenty minute scene is pointless
and unbearable!
Even with all of this, the picture has that cozy familiarity
that early 80s slasher films can sometimes gin up! I like the blue
cinematography that comes courtesy of Joao Fernandes (working under a pseudonym
for some reason, just as he did on Children
of the Corn); why, this must be the bluest slasher movie outside of Madman! And though the ringers – Tierney
and Farley Granger, mainly – are wasted, one is glad to see them at all! It’s by
far not the best of the so-called Classic Era slashers, but it’s far from the
worst either! It sits right about in the middle, so I’m going to give it two
turned-up eyeballs!
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