The Prowler (1981 film)
Encyclopedia
The Prowler is an American slasher movie
released in 1981, directed
by Joseph Zito
. The film has been praised by gore fans for its brutal and realistic murder scenes. It was also mentioned by Eli Roth
as one of his inspirations in the documentary Fantastic Flesh.
In a letter dated March 12 and sent to her lover abroad, a woman named Rosemary writes that she can no longer wait for him. She tells him that so much has happened and that perhaps they can be friends upon his return.
On June 28, 1945 - the town of Avalon Bay holds it's graduation dance. G.I.s escort their girlfriends to the ball. Inside, the class of '45 are swinging to the orchestra's music.
Rosemary (Joy Glaccum) is attending with her new boyfriend Roy (Timothy Wahrer). The two decide to go off by themselves and drive to a lake where they spend some romantic time together in a gazebo.
Lights are strung up around the gazebo and along the small nearby walkbridge. Ominously, someone approaches the couple and cuts the power. The stranger is wearing full combat gear and carrying a pitchfork.
As Rosemary and Roy embrace, she looks up and sees the pitchfork over them. Rosemary screams and the stranger plunges it through the both of them...and then leaves a long-stemmed red rose in the dead woman's hand. The revelers are oblivious back at the dance.
Thirty five years later, the town prepares for its graduation dance once again. There hasn't been one since that fateful night. Pam MacDonald (Vicky Dawson) stops by to see Sheriff George Fraser (Farley Granger) and they discuss the event.
The discussion turns to Major Chatham (Lawrence Tierney) and his refusal to allow the annual celebrations after the murders all those years ago. The Sheriff tells Pam that someone has robbed a store in the nearby town of Columbus and then cut up a kid and took his car.
Authorities there are afraid the killer is headed towards Avalon. Despite that possibility, the sheriff is leaving town to go fishing. He puts Mark London (Christopher Goutman), his deputy, in charge.
Before Sheriff Fraser takes off, he stops by a convenience store owned by Pat Kingsley (John Seitz). One of the employees is Otto (Bill Hugh Collins), a strange "slow" fellow whom the sheriff seems to mistrust.
Pam and Mark have an attraction for each other and go on a lunch date. She shows him an article she wrote about the return of the graduation dance and tells Mark she's concerned about his safety.
Pam also tells her roommate Sherry (Lisa Dunsheath) that she's worried about the Columbus killer. Sherry tries to calm her friend's nerves while the other girls in the dormitory are excitedly preparing for the dance. Lisa (Cindy Weintraub) even flashes Major Chatham, who's sitting in his wheelchair in the house across from them.
As Pam is putting the finishing touches on her outfit, someone else is getting ready too. But this person is putting on his combat uniform, complete with bayonet, hunting knife, and shotgun.
Sherry gets into the shower, and before Pam heads out, Pam asks her if she should wait. Sherry tells her to leave because she's waiting for her boyfriend Carl (David Sederholm). When Carl shows up, he surprises Sherry in the shower.
Hoping to have a little fun before they leave, he goes into the bedroom to undress. Suddenly, an intruder grabs him from behind and plunges the bayonet through Carl's head until the other end comes out of his neck. The force is so great that the victim's eyes roll back into his head.
Sherry is still in the shower when she sees someone through the curtain approaching. She thinks it's Carl...until the killer pulls the curtain open and is holding a pitchfork. As Sherry screams, he lunges it under her breasts. He then lifts her up as he sticks the pitchfork in further killing her.
At the party, Pam is happy to see Mark when he arrives. But before she can talk to him, Lisa pulls him away to dance. Pam stands by the cocktails, frustrated and annoyed. When Mark comes over to talk to her, Lisa follows him.
Tipsy from the alcohol, she knocks into him and he spills some liquor on Pam's dress. Pam is furious and heads back to the dorm to change her outfit.
When Pam gets to her room, she hears the shower running. Still thinking that Sherry is in the shower, she closes the door. Little does she know that Sherry is dead and that the killer is still in the bathroom. The room is dark enough that she doesn't see Carl's blood on the bed. She changes and then leaves.
But as she's going down the stairs, she hears something. Pam looks up at the top of the stairs and sees a dark figure...what looks like a G.I. She gets creeped out and runs through the dorm.
There's no one around and just as the killer comes near her, Pam makes it outside. She knocks right into Major Chatham, who grabs her arm. She breaks free and finds Mark.
When she tells him that someone has been chasing her, he takes his flashlight and searches around the dorm. Mark doesn't find anything besides wheelchair marks.
He returns to his car where Pam is waiting for him - and she tells him to check the dorm because Sherry and Carl are still in there. Mark goes inside and towards the bedroom but the door is locked. He doesn't see that there are two dead bodies in the tub.
Pam and Mark go to Major Chatham's house. It's dark and the old man is nowhere to be found. The killer is in the house and he watches them. During their search, Pam finds an old scrapbook and discovers that Chatham's dead daughter's middle name was Rosemary. She was the girl killed 35 years ago.
The two then go back to the dance, where they tell Miss Allison (Donna Davis) about the prowler on the campus. The teacher tells the students they should stay put and not go out until the person has been apprehended. That message comes too late for Lisa.
Angry that her date Paul has been puking in the bathroom, she's gone to the pool for a late night swim. After doing a few laps, she ascends the stairs of the pool to go back to the party. The killer is standing above her and kicks her in the face.
Shocked by the attack, Lisa tries to swim away but is unable to get her bearings. The killer then comes up from behind, takes his bayonet - and slices her neck. Her body falls lifelessly to the bottom of the water.
Paul wants to leave the dance and find Lisa but the teachers won't let him. He's so drunk and rowdy that he gets thrown out. Mark and Pam take him to the station house, where Mark puts him in a jail cell.
Told that the local cemetery has been desecrated, the two then head out to see what's happened. When they get there, they find Rosemary Chatham's grave dug up. They open the coffin and find Lisa's body in it.
Meanwhile, Miss Allison has left to see if she can find Lisa. She sees blood in the pool and panics. As she tries to run away, the killer grabs her and thrusts the bayonet into her neck.
Mark tries to reach Sheriff Fraser at the lodge he's staying at but can't get in touch with him. Before heading back to Major Chatham's house, Mark tries to drop Pam off at the dance.
She refuses and insists on going with him. When they get there, Mark leaves her for a moment and is knocked unconscious by the killer.
Pam spies a necklace dangling from inside the fireplace and tries to pull it out. Still in her graduation dance dress, Rosemary's skeleton falls out of the chimney. Pam tries to find Mark but is confronted by the killer. She runs through the house trying to get away and hides under a bed.
The madman is now in the same room. Pam makes every attempt to be still...even as a rat comes near her. Finally, Pam gets up and runs out of the room. She manages to get the pitchfork away from the killer and holds it up for protection as he comes near her.
Just then, Otto from Kingsley's convenience store, enters the room and shoots the prowler. Seconds later, the killer takes out his own shotgun and shoots Otto. Pam stabs the prowler with the pitchfork and they struggle for the shotgun.
The murderer pulls his mask off and Pam is horrified to see his identity. It's been Sheriff Fraser all along. Pam gets the upper hand, points the gun at his head and fires...exploding it to bits.
The next day, Pam returns to the dorm, she goes into the bathroom in her bedroom and opens the shower door. Sherry's body is on the floor of the tub and Carl is hanging from the showerhead by his tie.
Suddenly, Carl's corpse reaches out to grab her. She screams and the screen cuts to black.
, Ghostbusters II
, Twins, Kindergarten Cop
, and Francis Ford Coppola
's film Bram Stoker's Dracula. Some of the film's notorious kill scenes were heavily edited in the American version, including: Some of Rosemary and her boyfriend's double pitchfork impalement, a graphic shot or two from the sword, shower, and pool deaths, and a longer extra shot of the head explosion at the end. The film has close connections with Maniac
directed by William Lustig
, which was made a year earlier. It features special effect
s and makeup by Tom Savini
.
and Europe
and is missing almost a minute of Savini's gore effects.
/Image.
Slasher film
A slasher film is a type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe...
released in 1981, directed
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
by Joseph Zito
Joseph Zito
Joseph Zito is an American film director. He is perhaps well known for directing many low budget action B-movies of the 1980s such as, Missing in Action, Invasion U.S.A., Red Scorpion, and many others. In the mid-1980s, Zito spent a year of pre-production on the Cannon version of Spider-Man...
. The film has been praised by gore fans for its brutal and realistic murder scenes. It was also mentioned by Eli Roth
Eli Roth
Eli Raphael Roth is an American film director, producer, writer and actor. He is known for his role as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds for which he won both a SAG Award and a BFCA Critic's Choice Award...
as one of his inspirations in the documentary Fantastic Flesh.
Plot
It is the end of the second World War and newsreel footage shows us the troops returning from Europe onboard the Queen Mary.In a letter dated March 12 and sent to her lover abroad, a woman named Rosemary writes that she can no longer wait for him. She tells him that so much has happened and that perhaps they can be friends upon his return.
On June 28, 1945 - the town of Avalon Bay holds it's graduation dance. G.I.s escort their girlfriends to the ball. Inside, the class of '45 are swinging to the orchestra's music.
Rosemary (Joy Glaccum) is attending with her new boyfriend Roy (Timothy Wahrer). The two decide to go off by themselves and drive to a lake where they spend some romantic time together in a gazebo.
Lights are strung up around the gazebo and along the small nearby walkbridge. Ominously, someone approaches the couple and cuts the power. The stranger is wearing full combat gear and carrying a pitchfork.
As Rosemary and Roy embrace, she looks up and sees the pitchfork over them. Rosemary screams and the stranger plunges it through the both of them...and then leaves a long-stemmed red rose in the dead woman's hand. The revelers are oblivious back at the dance.
Thirty five years later, the town prepares for its graduation dance once again. There hasn't been one since that fateful night. Pam MacDonald (Vicky Dawson) stops by to see Sheriff George Fraser (Farley Granger) and they discuss the event.
The discussion turns to Major Chatham (Lawrence Tierney) and his refusal to allow the annual celebrations after the murders all those years ago. The Sheriff tells Pam that someone has robbed a store in the nearby town of Columbus and then cut up a kid and took his car.
Authorities there are afraid the killer is headed towards Avalon. Despite that possibility, the sheriff is leaving town to go fishing. He puts Mark London (Christopher Goutman), his deputy, in charge.
Before Sheriff Fraser takes off, he stops by a convenience store owned by Pat Kingsley (John Seitz). One of the employees is Otto (Bill Hugh Collins), a strange "slow" fellow whom the sheriff seems to mistrust.
Pam and Mark have an attraction for each other and go on a lunch date. She shows him an article she wrote about the return of the graduation dance and tells Mark she's concerned about his safety.
Pam also tells her roommate Sherry (Lisa Dunsheath) that she's worried about the Columbus killer. Sherry tries to calm her friend's nerves while the other girls in the dormitory are excitedly preparing for the dance. Lisa (Cindy Weintraub) even flashes Major Chatham, who's sitting in his wheelchair in the house across from them.
As Pam is putting the finishing touches on her outfit, someone else is getting ready too. But this person is putting on his combat uniform, complete with bayonet, hunting knife, and shotgun.
Sherry gets into the shower, and before Pam heads out, Pam asks her if she should wait. Sherry tells her to leave because she's waiting for her boyfriend Carl (David Sederholm). When Carl shows up, he surprises Sherry in the shower.
Hoping to have a little fun before they leave, he goes into the bedroom to undress. Suddenly, an intruder grabs him from behind and plunges the bayonet through Carl's head until the other end comes out of his neck. The force is so great that the victim's eyes roll back into his head.
Sherry is still in the shower when she sees someone through the curtain approaching. She thinks it's Carl...until the killer pulls the curtain open and is holding a pitchfork. As Sherry screams, he lunges it under her breasts. He then lifts her up as he sticks the pitchfork in further killing her.
At the party, Pam is happy to see Mark when he arrives. But before she can talk to him, Lisa pulls him away to dance. Pam stands by the cocktails, frustrated and annoyed. When Mark comes over to talk to her, Lisa follows him.
Tipsy from the alcohol, she knocks into him and he spills some liquor on Pam's dress. Pam is furious and heads back to the dorm to change her outfit.
When Pam gets to her room, she hears the shower running. Still thinking that Sherry is in the shower, she closes the door. Little does she know that Sherry is dead and that the killer is still in the bathroom. The room is dark enough that she doesn't see Carl's blood on the bed. She changes and then leaves.
But as she's going down the stairs, she hears something. Pam looks up at the top of the stairs and sees a dark figure...what looks like a G.I. She gets creeped out and runs through the dorm.
There's no one around and just as the killer comes near her, Pam makes it outside. She knocks right into Major Chatham, who grabs her arm. She breaks free and finds Mark.
When she tells him that someone has been chasing her, he takes his flashlight and searches around the dorm. Mark doesn't find anything besides wheelchair marks.
He returns to his car where Pam is waiting for him - and she tells him to check the dorm because Sherry and Carl are still in there. Mark goes inside and towards the bedroom but the door is locked. He doesn't see that there are two dead bodies in the tub.
Pam and Mark go to Major Chatham's house. It's dark and the old man is nowhere to be found. The killer is in the house and he watches them. During their search, Pam finds an old scrapbook and discovers that Chatham's dead daughter's middle name was Rosemary. She was the girl killed 35 years ago.
The two then go back to the dance, where they tell Miss Allison (Donna Davis) about the prowler on the campus. The teacher tells the students they should stay put and not go out until the person has been apprehended. That message comes too late for Lisa.
Angry that her date Paul has been puking in the bathroom, she's gone to the pool for a late night swim. After doing a few laps, she ascends the stairs of the pool to go back to the party. The killer is standing above her and kicks her in the face.
Shocked by the attack, Lisa tries to swim away but is unable to get her bearings. The killer then comes up from behind, takes his bayonet - and slices her neck. Her body falls lifelessly to the bottom of the water.
Paul wants to leave the dance and find Lisa but the teachers won't let him. He's so drunk and rowdy that he gets thrown out. Mark and Pam take him to the station house, where Mark puts him in a jail cell.
Told that the local cemetery has been desecrated, the two then head out to see what's happened. When they get there, they find Rosemary Chatham's grave dug up. They open the coffin and find Lisa's body in it.
Meanwhile, Miss Allison has left to see if she can find Lisa. She sees blood in the pool and panics. As she tries to run away, the killer grabs her and thrusts the bayonet into her neck.
Mark tries to reach Sheriff Fraser at the lodge he's staying at but can't get in touch with him. Before heading back to Major Chatham's house, Mark tries to drop Pam off at the dance.
She refuses and insists on going with him. When they get there, Mark leaves her for a moment and is knocked unconscious by the killer.
Pam spies a necklace dangling from inside the fireplace and tries to pull it out. Still in her graduation dance dress, Rosemary's skeleton falls out of the chimney. Pam tries to find Mark but is confronted by the killer. She runs through the house trying to get away and hides under a bed.
The madman is now in the same room. Pam makes every attempt to be still...even as a rat comes near her. Finally, Pam gets up and runs out of the room. She manages to get the pitchfork away from the killer and holds it up for protection as he comes near her.
Just then, Otto from Kingsley's convenience store, enters the room and shoots the prowler. Seconds later, the killer takes out his own shotgun and shoots Otto. Pam stabs the prowler with the pitchfork and they struggle for the shotgun.
The murderer pulls his mask off and Pam is horrified to see his identity. It's been Sheriff Fraser all along. Pam gets the upper hand, points the gun at his head and fires...exploding it to bits.
The next day, Pam returns to the dorm, she goes into the bathroom in her bedroom and opens the shower door. Sherry's body is on the floor of the tub and Carl is hanging from the showerhead by his tie.
Suddenly, Carl's corpse reaches out to grab her. She screams and the screen cuts to black.
Cast
- Vicky Dawson as Pam MacDonald
- Christopher GoutmanChristopher GoutmanChristopher Goutman is an American soap opera producer, writer, actor, and director. He has played minor roles on Search for Tomorrow, Texas and The Edge of Night. After leaving acting, he began to direct on All My Children, As the World Turns, Guiding Light, and Another World...
as Mark London - Lawrence TierneyLawrence TierneyLawrence Tierney was an American actor, known for his many screen portrayals of mobsters and hardened criminals, which mirrored his own frequent brushes with the law....
as Major Chatham - Farley GrangerFarley GrangerFarley Earle Granger was an American actor. In a career spanning several decades, he was perhaps best known for his two collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Rope in 1948 and Strangers on a Train in 1951.-Early life:...
as Sheriff George Fraser - Cindy Weintraub as Lisa
- Lisa Dunsheath as Sherry
- David Sederholm as Carl
- Thom BrayThom BrayThomas Edward "Thom" Bray is an American actor perhaps best known for his role as Murray "Boz" Bozinsky in the detective TV series Riptide....
as Ben - Diane Rode as Sally
- Bryan Englund as Paul
- Donna Davis as Miss Allison
- Joy Glaccum as Francis Rosemary Chatham
- Timothy Wahrer as Roy
Production
Tom Savini referred to The Prowler as some of his best work as a special effects artist. Peter Giuliano played the killer while masked, though he was uncredited. Peter Giuliano went on to be First Assistant Director on the films GhostbustersGhostbusters
Ghostbusters is a 1984 American science fiction comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. The film stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, and Rick Moranis and follows three eccentric parapsychologists in New York City, who start a...
, Ghostbusters II
Ghostbusters II
Ghostbusters II is a 1989 science fiction comedy film produced and directed by Ivan Reitman. It is the sequel to the 1984 film Ghostbusters and follows the further adventures of a group of parapsychologists and their organization which combats paranormal activities...
, Twins, Kindergarten Cop
Kindergarten Cop
Kindergarten Cop is a 1990 American comedy thriller film directed by Ivan Reitman and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger stars as John Kimble, a tough police detective, who must go undercover as a kindergarten teacher to catch drug dealer Cullen Crisp , before Crisp can get to his...
, and Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
's film Bram Stoker's Dracula. Some of the film's notorious kill scenes were heavily edited in the American version, including: Some of Rosemary and her boyfriend's double pitchfork impalement, a graphic shot or two from the sword, shower, and pool deaths, and a longer extra shot of the head explosion at the end. The film has close connections with Maniac
Maniac (1980 film)
Maniac is a 1980 American slasher film , about a disturbed and traumatized serial killer who scalps his victims. It was directed by William Lustig and written by Joe Spinell and C. A. Rosenberg...
directed by William Lustig
William Lustig
William Lustig , also known as Bill Lustig, is an American film director and producer who has worked primarily in the horror film genre.-Movie career:...
, which was made a year earlier. It features special effect
Special effect
The illusions used in the film, television, theatre, or entertainment industries to simulate the imagined events in a story are traditionally called special effects ....
s and makeup by Tom Savini
Tom Savini
Thomas Vincent "Tom" Savini is an American actor, stuntman, director, award-winning special effects and makeup artist. He is known for his work on the Living Dead films directed by George A. Romero, as well as Creepshow, The Burning, Friday the 13th, The Prowler, and Maniac. He directed the 1990...
.
Release
The extras include a trailer, a still and poster gallery, behind the scenes gore footage with Tom Savini and an audio commentary with Joseph Zito and Tom Savini. The Prowler was released as Rosemary's Killer in AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and is missing almost a minute of Savini's gore effects.
DVD release
The DVD was released on September 3, 2002 with an Approximate running time from 89 minutes (Uncut Version). It is screen with an Aspect ratio from Anamorphic 1.85:1 and is distributeed by Blue UndergroundBlue Underground
Blue Underground is an American company specializing in releasing authoritative editions of cult and exploitation movies on Blu-ray Disc and DVD....
/Image.
Reception
The film received mixed reviews. Critics called it "rather predictable and slow slasher", but they also mentioned that the film was "saved" by the gore set-pieces by effects maestro Tom Savini, which was the only saving grace and highlight of The Prowler.Background
- Joseph Zito and Tom Savini would work together again in the similarly toned 1984 slasher film, Friday the 13th: The Final ChapterFriday the 13th: The Final ChapterFriday the 13th: The Final Chapter is a 1984 slasher film. It is the fourth film in the Friday the 13th film series. Though it was billed as "The Final Chapter," there have been many further sequels in the franchise. The popularity and financial success of the film, which grossed over $32 million,...
.