Customer Reviews

The Prowler

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

There was always something about "The Prowler" that made it stand out among the other 80's slashers. It's a fun and scary movie that features some of F/X maestro Tom Savini's most gruesome work. The small town setting, the sprawling mansion and dorm, the innovative backstory all create a great atmosphere. The actual menacing figure of the Prowler himself is just down right creepy, and the unique kills involving a pitchfork, a bayonette and other sharp instruments will keep horror fans happy. The DVD treatment is fantastic, and I really enjoyed Tom Savini's behind the scenes look at some of the great effects. If you are a fan of the horror genre then this movie is a must see. The only two drawbacks to the film; the Prowler looks menacing, but he doesn't instill that sense of dread Jason or Michael posess. And the musical score is kind of flat, not really helping to build suspense, just a trilling violin that kind of gets in the way. But those two minor complaints shouldn't keep you from enjoying a great old-school slasher. And by the way....why do so many people who have reviewed this movie feel the need to give away the entire story? I mean if you are not sure what "The Prowler" is about...just look at the DVD cover art....there aren't too many folks out there that will think this is a romantic comedy!! If you aren't familiar with this movie, don't read further reviews some of which contain quite a few spoilers!

Joseph Zito's relentlessly cruel THE PROWLER is one of the very few memorable films to have emerged from the vast wasteland of 80's era slasher cycle crud. Like THE BURNING and MY BLOODY VALENTINE, THE PROWLER tells an undeniably cliche ridden tale but compensates with memorable characters, decent production values, a surprisingly effective musical score and, of course, some of the most inventive and grotesquely realistic murder sequences in the genre. In fact, this may very well be the most violent movie of its ilk ever made. Despite its ferocious gore, this film somehow managed to get an uncensored theatrical release (with an obviously bogus "R" rating).

While there are no real surprises on hand for the horror aficionado, THE PROWLER is so slickly filmed by real craftsmen that it naturally has instant appeal as one of the only competently directed and watchable movies of its kind. If there is such a thing as a "classic" slasher, THE PROWLER is surely one.

The Blue Underground DVD is a highly recommended purchase for fans of this terrific little gorefest. The film is presented in widescreen format (1.85:1) in a nice, colorful transfer, looking much better than it ever has before. Disc extras include trailers, a poster/stills gallery and a fun but brief behind-the-scenes videotaped look at Tom Savini's awesome makeup effects. Best bonus of all is an occasionally raucous audio commentary by Savini and director Joseph Zito, in which the two apparent friends share informative and entertaining tidbits about the film's often chaotic production.

To say THE PROWLER is any kind of great film is simply untrue. However, the whole thing has an eerie, unsettling, dream-like quality to it that carries it through the slower patches and makes the film's near-total lack of coherency and logic much easier to take. The tension is kept taught throughout, and with top-notch scoring, photography, gore effects and direction, makes for a surprisingly effective and repeatable horror film. Just make sure you watch it in the dead of night! The Blue Underground DVD has a fine anamorphic transfer that is as good as the original negatives will allow, some fascinating on-set footage of the make-up effects, an impressive stills and poster gallery that is definitely worth ploughing through and a superb, hugely entertaining commentary with director Joseph Zito and make-up maestro Tom Savini. Very much recommended.

The Prowler is a classic slasher gorehound film that really delivers all you want to see. It also is genuinely scary and builds up a lot of tension at points. I have not seen gore this good in a long time. Tom Savini is the master! This is so much more watcheable than Friday the 13th. I could never understand the popularity of those flicks, especially since they were always so censored. This is the real deal! If you are a gorehound and like a lot of blood with your horror, you can't go wrong with The Prowler.

As a long time fan of slasher films, I have been disappointed with the Friday the 13th series and the Nightmare on Elm street series and not to mention the Halloween series. The more sequels there are, the more outragous the storylines. Its a insult to the viewers intelligence. The Prowler, is straight and to the point...to the point of a large pitchfork that is. This movie is what a true fan of horror/slasher films is looking for. The murder scenes are very elaborate and very creative. With special effects by the master Tom Savini (creepshow, Friday the 13th) its a rollercoaster ride of who done its.

In Australia and the United Kingdom too I think, this movie is called Rosemary's Killer. In America it is ofcourse called the Prowler. I personally like the title Rosemary's Killer better. I just bought an ex rental of the movie and unfortunately is not the best of copies but it is better than nothing. I can't say what the DVD is like because I haven't seen it, but I have seen the movie. I recommend it a lot. It is one of the best horror films out there. It was made when horror films were in their prime. Back in the early eighties when they were turning them out like sausages.
The story is about a young woman who is dating a GI and she writes him a letter ending their relationship. The soldier returns home from World War II and he finds his girlfriend and her new lover in a gazebo and impales them on a pitchfork.
Jump to 35 years into the future and a graduation day is coming up.For some reason this triggers Rosemary's Killer into action again and more murders occur. The killer sticks a knife through the top of a man's head, pitchforks another in a shower, almost severs the head of a girl in a pool. The special effects are great, I would go so far as to say they are the best. They are created by Tom Savini who is much better at horror effects than he is at acting.
Just before the murders occur the sheriff tells his deputy that he is going on a fishing trip.Then the murders start occuring. The only person that could have been old enough in the picture to have done the murders of Rosemary and her new boyfriend was one man.Once you got that down the identity of the killer is pretty obvious although I will say when I found out it did shock me even though it should've been obvious to me. I must have been caught up in the movie.This movie is more gory than the Friday the 13ths, even the final chapter. I don't understand why the Friday the 13ths should be cut more if they were than this.So maybe would have been considered less popular and therefore didn't bother to censor it as much.
I agree with one review. It is not clear what the reason is for the killer to start killing again. Maybe it is simply a graduation.
Be warned-this movie is how it should be. It is a little slow in some places, but the gore makes up for that.

People who actually enjoy slasher movie's will probably want to see this. They may not think it's great, but they'll probably find it sufficiently entertaining. Those who don't like slasher movies... well, duh. Still, this is an above average slasher movie, with less grating performances than usual, well done gore, reasonably well designed stalking scenes and some slight suspense at times.

Alright, the plot's like this: there's a killer who's killing on the anniversary of his previous killings, and there are a bunch of faceless young adults for him to kill. I can't remember a single characters name in this film, and there is virtually no characterization.(Which, I might add, is not a flaw in this particular kind of film) Well, let's think, there's the inexperienced deputy guy, the blonde chick, the crazy fat balding guy, the sheriff, the surly clerk dude. Those are perhaps more specifics than I could usually come up with after watching a slasher film, but that ain't a whole lot. There's a certain amount of investigation into the killer's identity, but it is of no particular interest. I already knew the killer's identity before watching the film, but most people say that there's absolutely no difficulty guessing who it is, and I don't doubt them. Obviously, the afrorementioned aspects of the film aren't very important at all. All that matters are the killing and the stalking, and it's all pretty well done.

The killer is a veteran, and thus he does his slashing in his old infantry garb. I think this is a pretty effective outfit for him, though he has no particular characteristics beyond this, other than that he tends to use a bayonet and a pitchfork.
This is a fairly early slasher film, so it's got a relatively low body count, and actively tries to generate suspense a bit more than some other films. Some of the stalking scenes go on for ever and ever, initially being a bit suspenseful, sometimes, but eventually becoming kind of dull. I will give the movie credit- there was a false scare in the film that I initally believed would be a real scare, and a sudden murder that I wasn't actually expecting. Still, even if most of the stalking scenes really aren't surprising or all that suspenseful, it's still fun to watch, even before the killing starts. Why this is a couldn't really say, but it's still interesting enough.

The gore in this film was done by Tom Savini, and it holds up very well.(Most of the work holds up better than what he did in the more famous/infamous Maniac) This film is unrated, so you don't get sudden, jarring cutaways, which is nice. The film takes the violence a lot more seriously than lots of other slasher movies, not really emphasizing creative methods of murder, and also trying to make the deaths more genuinely horrific. The film is not extremely gory, but it is unflinching in the face of the violence, and it makes killing people look a lot more difficult than many other films.(Exemplified by the effort and surprising amount of time it takes for the prowler to impale someone on his pitchfork, and how long it takes the bayonet-through-the-brain victim to die. The throat-slashing in the pool is quite nasty as well) There's also a shotgun-head explosion. It's not Savini's best, or as good as the Scanners exploding head, but an exploding head is always amusing.

Yeah this movie's pretty cool.(Don't let the 3 star rating fool you: As much as I enjoy them, I can't think of a single out and out slasher movie that I'd give 5 stars. So, this is reasonably high up on the slasher-meter)

I am near speechless that this is coming out on DVD!!! Finally I can throw away that VHS. But I must say the extras sound GREAT TOO! Widescreen and trailers is all I ask for. All else is icing on the cake. And how much ICING are we getting, WOOO WHOOOO!
I first saw this movie whenI was a kid. Back then Savini meant nothing to me,a nd horror movies were picked based on the VHS cover at at the video store. My cousins and I stumbled upon this gem, and the effects are GREAT!! Savini really shines here. You have the pitch fork impailing, the sward through the skull, and a WHOLE bunch of other great scenes. The story is about a Veteran of WWII, who's heart was broken while he was in teh war by Rose Mary. She broke it off with him. He ends up killing her and her new BEAU on the night of their graduation dance. Well some 40 years go by with no Graduation dances, until now. And of course the killer comes back. You know it's typical slasher film plot, with great special effects by the master Savini. No looking ro remake Gone With The Wind here. It's just a great romp of a slasher film. If you like teh 80's stuff, and the great effects like they just don't make them, then you will love this. Give it a whirl, you won't be dissapointed...thanks to WILLIAM LUSTIG for starting up this new label BLUE UNDERGROUND, and making this movie available to the FANS!...Anywaho, get this DVD and support this new DVD lable. I am...

One of the previous post mentioned that this film is often overlooked and has seldom been noticed or acknowledged in the world of horror films. They were definetly right.

I hadn't ever heard of this 1980 slasher flick until an AMC 100 Greatest Horror Films special that aired around Halloween of last year.

I put off buying this movie, mainly because it was unavailable to rent at my local video stores AND via netflix and blockbuster online...but I finally caved a week ago and shelled out the 15 buckeroos and had this bad boy sent out via amazon.

I must admit that I am slightly dissapointed. I don't know if I was simply not in a horror movie mood when I watched this, or if it truly is a poor slasher film...but the movie left me feeling underwhelmed.

I have to give Tom Savini credit for his incredible special effects. The gore is intense for it being made it 1980. Savini gives us shots of knives sawing into flesh and pitchforks prodding into body parts, that actually LOOK real. The pitchfork in the stomach looked pretty real, and i was grossed out at the pool scene. The blood is actually quite dark and realistic too, which is a pretty high feat.

The film's traditional heroine, while sweet and somewhat innocent, reminded me too much of Ginny from Friday The 13th Part 2, and I couldn't help but have the two characters overlapping in my mind throughout the movie.

There seemed to be a problem with the pacing of the film too. Something just felt OFF. The ending was lackluster and didn't impress me. I gotta give this movie 3 stars simply for Tom Savini's incredibly original and gore filled special effects. The rest of the movie was a total bummer for me though.

Joseph Zito (who directed Friday the 13th 4, which was the best in the long running series) directed this forgotten 80's slasher gem, which is made all the more memorable thanks to the unbelievably gruesome gore effects from FX legend Tom Savini. The Prowler follows the basic 80's slasher formula (revenge) to a tee, but Zito weaves some better than average set pieces, and Savini's grisly effects are the true star of the show. The pitchfork scene is definitely worth noting here, an you'll never look at one the same way again. There's some pretty good extras on the DVD to boot, including archive footage of Savini in action. The Prowler isn't a classic of the genre at all (saying that most of the acting is wooden is saying it lightly) but it's the inventive effects work by one of the true masters of the genre that make the Prowler worth seeing.