Don't go to the graduation dance in Avalon Bay!
BACKGROUND
In 1957, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera co-founded Hanna-Barbera, which would go on to become the most successful TV animation studio in the business, producing programs like The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, Top Cat, The Smurfs, Huckleberry Hound, Godzilla, The Jetsons, and more. In the late 1970s, Glenn Leopold joined the company as a story editor, writer, character creator, and show developer. He worked on a whole lot of cartoons and created characters for The Smurfs and Jonny Quest – and while he was working for Hanna-Barbera, he befriended Joseph Barbera’s son, Neal Barbera. Together, Leopold and the younger Barbera wrote the script for a film that was far from the sort of material Hanna-Barbera was making. They wrote a slasher that had the working title Graduation and was released as Rosemary’s Killer in some territories (there’s also a heavily edited version called The Pitchfork of Death in Germany, and it was released as The Pitchfork Massacre in the Carolinas), but is best known by the title The Prowler.
Director Joseph Zito had made a pair of thrillers – the 1975 “kidnapped heiress” film Abduction and the 1980 “young man kills hookers” horror movie Bloodrage (not to be confused with the Thanksgiving slasher Blood Rage). He put together a ten-minute reel and took it to the Cannes Film Festival, hunting for jobs... and he got one! A businessman named Carl Kaminsky was impressed by Zito’s reel, made a call to a client, and that client hired Ziro to direct The Prowler. Zito read the script and said he was drawn to its “misty quality.” He liked it because “it had this strange, dreamlike mood in it. It wasn't trying to be real, it was trying to be surreal in a way.”
The script was set in Avalon, California, the only incorporated city on Santa Catalina Island, which sits 22 miles off the coast of Southern California. That sounds like an interesting setting for a slasher, but Zito decided to move the setting across the country. He thought it would be interesting to shoot the film in Cape May, New Jersey, which he felt had a ghost town quality, even though it’s one of the country’s oldest vacation resort destinations.
At the time, the film was said to have a budget in the range of $400,000 to $500,000, but Zito has gone on to say that he made $1 million to work with. Whatever the case, he and fellow producer David Streit made a great decision when they chose to give a chunk of that money to special effects artist Tom Savini, who had caught a lot of attention for his blood and gore work on Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th, and Maniac. The fact that Savini was brought in to craft the kills in the movie is the main reason why The Prowler has a cult following to this day.
SETTING
As mentioned, the script was set in Avalon, California, but the film was shot in Cape May, New Jersey. Instead of sticking with the real name of the filming location or just keeping the Avalon name for the setting, The Prowler is said to take place in the fictional town of Avalon Bay. Most of the action takes place in and around Pritcher College, which gives the characters plenty of hallways, stairways, and rooms to get stalked and chased through.
This place doesn’t really look like a college, and that’s because it’s not. The Inn at Cape May served as the college in exterior shots, while the historic Chalfonte Hotel was the filming location for scenes that take place in the dorms. The Franklin Street Civic Center provided the school gynmnasium. There are also scenes that take place in a mansion that’s right beside the college, and the filming location for that was the Emlen Physick Estate, which is a Victorian house museum in real life.
There are also scenes that venture out to the local police station, a store, and a cemetery... but there’s not enough scenes set in central Avalon Bay to really get across that ghost town quality that Zito was interested in. Most of the scenes are set inside. But the interior filming locations were put to good use, and these hotel-as-college scenes give the movie a unique look and vibe.
KILLER
Although The Prowler was made at a time when the aftermath of the Vietnam War was the main focus, coming out in between Coming Home and First Blood, Leopold and Barbera looked back to an earlier war with their story – World War II. The film begins with a 1945 news reel talking about the end of World War II and the return of triumphant troops, some of whom are psychological victims of war who will need time to rebuild their lives. There’s also reference to the troops who received “Dear John” letters from their significant others while they were abroad and will have to start over completely. So it’s clear from the start that the killer is going to be a World War II who was severely psychological traumatized by his time on the battlefield and received a “Dear John” letter was away.
In fact, we see the letter, complete with narration, sent to this man from a girl named Rosemary on March 12, 1944. She intended to wait for him until the war was over... but then she found that she couldn’t wait any longer because the conflict was going on longer than she expected it to. “I’m young and have to live my life.” She did leave the door open for them to be friends. He’s not interested in that. On June 28, 1945, the night of the Pritcher College graduation dance (yeah, this is a college that has graduation dances like a high school), the jilted veteran killed Rosemary and her new beau.
That was the last Pritcher College graduation dance for 35 years. Rosemary’s father, Major Chatham, who lives in the mansion beside the college, wouldn’t let the school hold the dance anymore after his daughter was killed. Making matters even worse, her murderer was never captured. But now Chatham has suffered a stroke and is confined to a wheelchair, so no one takes him seriously anymore. Pritcher is reviving the dance. And that sets off the killer all over again. He puts his World War II combat fatigues back on, arms himself with a pitchfork and a bayonet, and sets out to kill more youngsters.
The identity of the killer is withheld from us until the final moments, as the murderer is lurking somewhere among the cast, but he looks great in his face-obscuring outfit. The combat fatigues and pitchfork are an odd combo, but he puts that pitchfork to good use, so who can complain? And who is he? Is Major Chatham (Lawrence Tierney) actually mobile enough to kill people? Is it the odd shopkeep Pat Kingsley (John Seitz) or his employee Otto (Bill Hugh Collins)? Whoever it is, Sheriff George Fraser (Farley Granger) won’t be around to arrest them: he has left town on his annual fishing trip.
I also have to mention that I have, on multiple occasions, been in the presence of a cosplayer who worse a perfect replica of the Prowler’s outfit, and it’s creepy as hell to be in the same room as this guy.
FINAL GIRL
Leopold and Barbera didn’t do much character work in their script, but it’s easy to tell who the final girl is going to be from the moment she steps on screen. That’s Vicky Dawson as Pam McDonald, who may or may not have been a journalism major, since everyone seems to be interested in an article she wrote for the graduation edition of the school newspaper. After an encounter with the killer, she kicks into “investigative reporter” mode and spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out who’s hidden underneath those combat fatigues. This investigation primarily consists of a lot of wandering around (through the Chatham house, through the cemetery, through the Chatham house again), but Pam proves her smarts by putting together clues better than her boyfriend does – and that’s significant because, with the sheriff out of town, her boyfriend is the only cop on duty in Avalon Bay.
VICTIMS
Besides Pam, the most prominent character in the film is her boyfriend, Deputy Mark London (Christopher Goutman). He’s not a great cop and isn’t a very good boyfriend, either. We know this because his eye keeps drifting to Pam’s friend, Lisa (Cindy Weintraub). Lisa is the obligatory “wild child” character who catches Mark’s attention on purpose, despite the fact that she has a boyfriend of her own (Bryan Englund as Paul), and even flashes her breasts at Major Chatham as he watches her from next door. Not all of these characters become victims of the Prowler – but they’re on the list of potential corpses.
Pam’s roommate Sherry (Lisa Dunsheath) and her date Carl (David Sederholm) don’t even make it to the dance. Chaperone Miss Allison (Donna Davis) makes the mistake of leaving the dance. Lisa’s roommate Sally (Diane Rode) and her boyfriend Ben (Thom Bray) really luck out because they make the typical slasher movie mistake of going down to the basement by themselves, yet the Prowler never shows up to kill them!
Of course, the problems all start in 1945, when Rosemary Chatham (Joy Glaccum) and her date Roy (Timothy Wahrer) left the dance and became the first victims of the Prowler.
The supporting characters aren’t given much to do so it’s difficult to like or dislike any of them. They’re just around, doing some stuff and saying some things, and then some of them get killed.
DEATHS
The death scenes, brought to the screen with Tom Savini’s effects, are where The Prowler truly shines. This one could be said to move through some of its scenes at an achingly slow pace, as there is a whole lot of not much happening during its running time – but when something does happen, it’s a glorious sight to behold. There is a shot in this movie, involving someone getting a knife stuck through their head, that I consider to be one of the greatest shots in slasher history. The shower pitchfork impalement is one for the history books, too.
In addition to those, we get a double impalement, a throat slitting, a throat stabbing, and a couple of shotgunnings, including someone’s head getting blown apart with a shotgun blast.
Legendary drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs has said that it’s necessary to mention Savini’s contributions multiple times when discussing The Prowler, because “unless you appreciate the special effects work in this movie, there is no movie.” I would agree with that. There’s a lot of dead air and the character work is non-existent, but I love the movie nonetheless, and that’s mainly due to the kills.
CLICHÉS
The Prowler does avoid some of the common slasher movie clichés. The character who gets the most wasted at the dance doesn’t get killed. The couple that wanders off to make out in the basement doesn’t get killed. Nobody gets killed after having sex. But there are plenty of clichés on display.
There’s a prologue featuring an old murder (or murders, in this case), anniversary-based / special event-inspired killings, the masked mystery killer, the isolated small town, red herrings, the climactic reveal of the killer’s identity, the final jump scare that doesn’t make any sense, the useless authority figure(s), and someone choosing the worst possible moment to go swimming.
POSTMORTEM
1981 was a big year for slasher movies, and The Prowler got lost in the shuffle during its theatrical release. After a potential distribution deal with Avco Embassy Pictures, the company behind the previous year’s release of Prom Night, fell through, The Prowler was distributed independently in the United States by Sandhurst Distributing Corporation. That meant a slow crawl through various cities around the country over a period of several months. It opened in Louisville, Kentucky and Dayton, Ohio, on June 26, 1981. It reached Kansas City, Missouri, on September 4, and didn’t screen in Los Angeles until October 9. This release strategy was not beneficial. The movie made less than $1 million during its theatrical run.
It quickly earned a cult following, through. As the years went by, The Prowler became known as one of the more popular non-franchise slasher films of the early '80s. I had heard about it for years but it was never available to rent in my town, none of my local stores ever had the VHS, so I wasn't able to see it until Blue Underground released it on DVD in late 2003... and something about the first modern-day kill totally freaked me out upon first viewing. I had rented the DVD from Netflix, back in those glory days when they were a source for DVD rentals, but when I saw what Savini did with that moment, it was decided right then: I had to own a copy of this movie. So I bought a copy and have watched The Prowler many, many times over the last twenty-plus years.
The most significant moment in The Prowler history came when a screening brought Joseph Zito's talents to the attention of Friday the 13th investor/producer Phil Scuderi, which got him the job of directing Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter a few years later. Zito, with Savini again doing the effects, made The Final Chapter one of the best entries in the F13 franchise... But that's a story for a different day. Today, we celebrate the unnerving vibe and awesome kills of The Prowler.
No comments:
Post a Comment