The Prowler (1981)

The Prowler (released internationally as Rosemary's Killer) is a 1981 American slasher film directed by Joseph Zito, written by Neal Barbera and Glenn Leopold, and starring Vicky Dawson, Farley Granger, Lawrence Tierney, and Christopher Goutman. Set in a small New Jersey town, the film concerns a group of college students holding a graduation spring dance, 35 years after a double-murderer occurred. Unbeknownst to them, they are targeted by a masked assailant dressed in World War II G.I. fatigues who begins a murderous spree as a result of the graduation's continuation. The film has developed a cult following over the years.

Plot
During World War II, a woman named Rosemary Chatham writes a Dear John letter to her boyfriend, breaking up with him because he has been away too long. On June 28, 1945, Rosemary (Joy Glaccum) is attending a graduation dance in the town of Avalon Bay with her new boyfriend Roy (Timothy Wahrer), who suggests they go out to the point in order to make out. While there, they are attacked by a mysterious prowler in an army combat uniform, who impales them both with a pitchfork, leaving behind a rose.

Thirty-five years later; on June 28, 1980, Pam MacDonald is organizing the first graduation ball in 35 years with her friends Lisa, Sherry and Sherry's love interest Carl. That afternoon, while visiting her love interest Mark London, who is the town's deputy, she overhears a report of a prowler, who may be on the way to Avalon Bay. The Sheriff, off to a cabin retreat leaves Mark in charge of keeping order in the town and at the dance while he is away. That night, after Pam leaves for the party, Sherry receives a surprise visit from Carl, who goes to undress to join her in the shower, but he is attacked and has a bayonetshoved through his skull. The killer then moves into the bathroom and impales Sherry with a pitchfork. At the dance, Pam becomes jealous when Mark is pulled into a dance with Lisa and leaves when he accidentally spills his drink onto her dress. She returns to the dorm to change but is chased by an unseen prowler, eventually running into Major Chatham; an old man bound to a wheelchair, reuniting with Mark, he investigates but does not discover the bodies of Sherry and Carl. They go together to investigate the major's home, not finding him there, Pam realizes that his daughter Rosemary's killer had never been found. Convinced the prowler from earlier is the one responsible, Mark heads with Pam to the dance to warn the chaperone Miss Allison about the possible danger. Meanwhile Lisa, fed up with her boyfriend Paul for getting drunk and sick, goes out to a nearby pool to cool off. Paul is arrested by Mark for public intoxication, meanwhile Lisa encounters the killer while swimming, who mercilessly slices her throat open. Allison learns that Lisa had gone out and goes to find her, but she is stabbed through the throat as she tries to escape the killer. Mark tries to call the cabin that the sheriff went to, but is ignored by the site worker too lazy to check to see if the sheriff is awake.

The local shopkeeper Otto complains to Mark he witnessed a disturbance in the cemetery, Mark and Pam go to investigate and discover an opened grave with Lisa's body in it. Mark tells her that the reported prowler had been caught hours before Lisa's murder and Pam suspects this is the same killer who murdered Rose and her boyfriend in 1945. They go to investigate Major Chatham's house once more, Mark is attacked and left for dead as the Prowler then chases Pam through the house. Otto appears and shoots the attacker, who recovers and shoots him dead before attacking Pam. During the scuffle, Pam discovers the Prowler is none other than Sheriff Fraser himself and turns his gun against him, blowing his head clean off, killing him. The next day, Mark returns with Pam to her dorm and she goes up alone. Discovering Sherry and Carl's bodies in the shower, she screams as Carl seems to come to life and grab at her, only realizing that he is dead, and that him grabbing at her was a hallucination.

Cast

 * Vicky Dawson as Pam MacDonald
 * Christopher Goutman as Deputy Mark London
 * Lawrence Tierney as Major Chatham
 * Farley Granger as Sheriff George Fraser
 * Cindy Weintraub as Lisa
 * Lisa Dunsheath as Sherry
 * David Sederholm as Carl
 * Bill Nunnery as Hotel Clerk
 * Thom Bray as Ben
 * Diane Rode as Sally
 * Bryan Englund as Paul
 * Donna Davis as Miss Allison
 * Carleton Carpenter as 1945 M.C
 * Joy Glaccum as Francis Rosemary Chatham
 * Timothy Wahrer as Roy
 * John Seitz as Pat Kingsley
 * Bill Hugh Collins as Otto
 * Dan Lounsbery as Jimmy Turner
 * Douglas Stevenson as Young Pat Kingsley
 * Susan Monts as Young Pat Kingsley's Date

Production
The film was shot in Cape May, New Jersey.[2] The cemetery scenes of the film were shot in an actual cemetery on the night of Halloween 1980, as well as the open grave that was awaiting a funeral.[citation needed] According to the audio commentary, AVCO Embassy pictures offered $750,000 for distribution rights of the film (the total budget was $1,000,000). Director Joseph Zito stated that the producer declined the offer and decided to self-distribute the film himself which hurt the film's box-office.[citation needed] The film's entire shooting schedule was built around the filming and effects.

Release
The Prowler was released as Rosemary's Killer in Australia and Europe, and is missing almost a minute of Tom Savini's gore effects.[citation needed]

The German version omits all of the gore scenes (including the revelation of the killer's identity) and replaced the soundtrack with bird sounds for daytime scenes, cricket sounds for the night scenes, and Richard Enhorn's score with synthesizer music by an uncredited musician. This version goes by the title Die Forke des Todes (The Pitchfork of Death).[citation needed]

The Encyclopedia of Horror reports that "Savini's particularly graphic special effects resulted in most of the murders being trimmed in the British release print."[3]

DVD and BLU-RAY release
Blue Underground released an uncut version of The Prowler on DVD in 2002 and on Blu-Ray in 2010. 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.

Reception
Currently on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 60% approval rating with an average of 5.1/10 based on 5 reviews.[4]

AllRovi called it a "run-of-the-mill entry in the early '80s slasher film cycle" that "benefits from an unexpected amount of technical gloss, but has little else to offer".[5] Felix Vasquez Jr. of Cinema Crazed gave the film a positive review, calling it "a surprisingly decent and vicious whodunit with a creative and merciless serial killer" that "manages to achieve injecting tension, while also creating a genuinely creepy killer." He also praised Pam, "an admirably smart and clever heroine who evades the killer quite cleverly" and the effects work of Tom Savini, concluding that the film is "definitely is one of the better slasher mysteries of the eighties" and "another of the fine collaborations between Tom Savini and Joseph Zito, both of whom know how to deliver damn fine slasher fare."[6]

James Kendrick of the Q Network Film Desk called the film "better-than-expected" and elevated "what might have been a routine, low-budget exercise in cheap sensationalism and gory special effects into a stylish mystery that also features plenty of cheap sensationalism and gory special effects." However, he argued that the film's effectiveness was less due to Savini's special effects and more due to director Joseph Zito's "attention to direction and style, as well as the film’s unusual evocation of history." He found the ending "truly bizarre", calling it "on one level yet another sigh-inducing retread of the last-minute surprise that was all but requisite following Brian De Palma's Carrie, but on another level is a weirdly surreal bit of art-film-infused ambiguity, leaving us with a strange sense of dislocation that feels imported from another film altogether. Whether that is an attribute or a detriment will be up to the individual viewer."[7]

Leonard Maltin gave the film a negative 1  1/2  out of a possible 4 stars, criticizing the film's plot calling it "illogical".[8] The Encyclopedia of Horror says that like My Bloody Valentine the film moves away from the genre's usual Midwestern setting, but that it does little with the new location, nor with its potentially interesting returning G.I. motif. Like Valentine, the film is judged as being certainly polished, atmospheric, and suspenseful, though hardly original.

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