“The Prowler” (1981) is one of those “more entertaining than it is good” Eighties slashers. It starts with a rare sense of pedigree as we see a break-up letter from Rosemary (Joy Glaccum) to her boyfriend, who is fighting in World War II. The wait for his return is too long; she wants to live her life.
So when we jump ahead to 1981, the script by three writers has an automatic mystery. Which of the middle-aged men is the Prowler, going around in full Army fatigues, including a face mask? Actually, with that garb, technically it could be someone of any age or gender, so we must beware of a fake-out.
“The Prowler” gets us thinking without having to do a lot of clue-dropping work, although it does the usual slasher thing of giving us too-obvious suspects: a slovenly guy at the bait shop, a supposedly wheelchair-bound guy who sits on his stoop and looks at the girls’ dorms, an off-screen killer on the lam from state police, and so forth.
“The Prowler” (1981)
Director: Joseph Zito
Writers: Glenn Leopold, Neal Barbera, Eric Lewald
Stars: Vicky Dawson, Christopher Goutman, Farley Granger
The Prowler usually favors a knife so long and sharp that even Rambo would raise his eyebrows, but sometimes switches it up with a pitchfork, including in one of the classic riffs on the “Psycho” Shower Scene. Although Tom Savani’s practical effects sell the scene, that’s not to say director Joseph Zito (“Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter,” a rare film in that series with character depth) has a Hitchcockian knack for suspense.
But it’s clear he studied the Master of Suspense, and even lame Hitch riffs have a certain cachet. Amusingly, Deputy Mark London (Rick Springfield, erm, I mean … Christopher Goutman) tries calling Sheriff Fraser (Hitch alum Farley Granger) at his fishing-lodge motel, and the lazy proprietor takes forever to get back to him.
Building suspense the simple way
Likewise in Mark’s slow-burn grave-opening scene — which the director splits in two by cutting to a separate blast of shock for Mark’s love interest Pam (Vicky Dawson) — Zito experiments with whether he can get suspense simply out of nothing happening for quite a while. The result is that he can. It’s crass — the artistry won’t hold up to a close inspection — but it’s not nothing.
The handheld-camera killer POV was becoming a trope on the heels of “Black Christmas” and “Halloween.” Interestingly, an attentive viewer will notice it’s used for two distinct POVs during the stretch where one college coed is being stalked at the swimming pool and a couple is being followed into the basement at the graduation dance. Temporarily, that adds to the easy-bake mystery. It’s fairly quickly explained. When you consider how many shlock slashers would leave it as a plot hole, it’s clear “The Prowler” is a tad smarter than the norm.
The cast of mostly unknowns carries us along nicely, led by Dawson’s Pam, who does an inordinate amount of waiting in the deputy’s jeep before realizing that’s not keeping her safer. So she steps up her Final Girl game with a housebound chase that would have the “Scream” teens yelling for her to simply exit out the front door.
The writers wisely set the action at a college, thus allowing for a wider casting net. Or another way to look at it: We’re less likely to laugh at the fact that the students other than Pam tend to be about 30.
While “Psycho” is made fun of for its overly explanatory epilog, “The Prowler” is a striking opposite. When the killer is revealed – and I didn’t guess whodunit (despite the answer being under my nose) – I wanted a little more explanation. I guess our brains have already filled in the gaps: The Prowler was never caught in the 1940s, and therefore simply lived his life. Why wait so long to make his bold return? Well, what better time than the heyday of slashers?