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3/7/11
The Road to Horrorhound Weekend '11: The Prowler (1981)



The way I would find out how someone who had never seen The Prowler would feel about it would be to ask, “Have you seen My Bloody Valentine?” If they answer “No”, then I’ve got nothing for them and my example is shot, but if they answer in the affirmative, I could pretty much assure them that they’d enjoy this slightly less. While the cast of no name actors (bolstered by veterans Farley Granger and Lawrence Tierney) has a certain charisma, some of the smaller performances fall short or veer into stock territory. The plot itself also comes from a stock linage, but Tom Savini’s array of exploding heads, severed limbs, and impaled co-ed’s brings the whole film up several notches. The same can be said of the titular “Prowler”.
The marauding Yank utters nary a word, but follows in the single minded, determined, and masked footprints of such killers as Michael Myers and Harry Warden with a dash of Black Christmas’ POV killer creep thrown in for good measure. However, the fact is, no matter how much I enjoyed the killer with a zest for militaria, it could have been anyone inside of that outfit. Where some actors, like Kane Hodder or Gunner Hansen, have been able to create a character from behind the mask, The Prowler is a blank, faceless enemy. When revealed to both be the most obvious and least inspired suspect, it pulls the rug out from under me as a viewer. The tacked on “shocker” ending only adds to this disappointment as it feels expected and telegraphed. In a nutshell, while it’s a neat piece of trivia that Giuliano played the killer, his actual “performance” (i.e. walking menacingly at people) left little impression. So while I will be interested to see him at Horrorhound because of his many career achievements, I won’t be jumping up and down to meet “The Prowler”.
In the coming days of March, look out for more posts about films from Horrorhound Weekend Attendees, a lineup of incredible guest posts for Hitch on the Hump, the 3rd Annual celebration of all things Shatner, You Don’t Know Shat!, and much, much more. You never know what might me lurking…or should I say prowling… around The Lair this month!
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One of my all-time favorite slasher films. Apparently, Savini still thinks this is by far his best work. The knife through the top of the skull scene was my personal fav.
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