So I’m at the gym yesterday, sitting the wrong way in the chest press machine, wondering how I’m supposed to lift all that weight with my elbows, when it occurs to me that I don’t have any pent up energy.
“Go to the gym,” they say, “I’ll be a great way to work out that pent up energy and stress.”
Not me. I have the opposite of pent up energy. I have pent up naps; threatening to break out at any moment.
Shitty Horror Movie #439: The Prowler
I think after chipping away so much at my personal standards, I may have finally managed to lower the bar. Though it is a bad movie, I can’t bring myself to say it was a total waste of time.
It’s 1945. A young couple drives away from the homecoming dance to be alone in the park.
Strike one.
They sit down by the gazebo, but they are unconcerned when all the lights on the gazebo suddenly go out.
Strike two.
The man, aggravated by his date’s mild reluctance to play tonsil hockey, says, “C’mon, kitten. Don’t play hard to get.”
Strike three!
And screwed they are. They are both murdered by a love-stricken ex-solder who, though he was carrying a large knife and a gun, decides to murder them with a pitch fork. Um, is that regulation?
Before I go on, let me quickly add a few snippets from this film to my list of “Lines in your dialog that indicate you will be murdered in the movie:”
“C’mon, kitten. Don’t play hard to get.”
“Any of you girls got rolling papers?”
(Producing an unlabeled bottle of vodka) “We can fix the punch, as soon as the chaperon is looking the other way.”
Bam bam bam. A blind man could write up the hit list for this movie.
Anyway, back to the… um… plot.
Fast forward to the present (1980, you know, back when that was the present). For the first time since the murders, there will be a homecoming dance at the School For Girls With Low Standards And Loose Morals, or whatever the name was. But our soldier friend, who was never caught, now prowls the town, seeking new victims this night. Why, you ask? Why has he returned from hiding to begin killing again? That’s a good question. Having watched the whole movie, the answer is still apparently none of my business.
And let me ask you this. Don’t you hate it when you’re running from the killer and all the exits are locked from the outside for some reason? I mean, this chick tried, like, three doors before she gets out of the dormitory. Even the fire exit was bolted shut. WTF?
I don’t want to sound morbid, but the scenes where someone is not being killed are boring. In an effort to create tension, the director created scenes so long and dull that I could have done my taxes while waiting for something to happen.
The tension was so thin that I doubt you would need a knife to cut it; a spork would suffice, providing it didn’t just fall apart on its own, which it did, leaving weak piles of tension all over the place that the actors were constantly stepping in, saying, “Eww! I stepped in tension!”
So, the film’s only redeeming value is in the overly gratuitous murders that take place. It’s absurd how over-the-top yet entertaining these horrific scenes are; orchestrated by one of the greatest prosthetic effects men in the industry, Tom Savini. These aren’t half-assed CGI effects, these are old-school meat-cleavers-and-fake-heads effects, and it’s compelling how much care and attention to details went into them. Though most viewers would scoff, cringe, or file a lawsuit, I think these scenes had heart.
But it’s not enough to save this movie. The story and acting are complete crap. But, I got what I thought I'd get when I rented it: a popcorn movie for times when you're tired of thinking.
I’ll leave you with this inspiring line:
(Angrily) “You’re going after him alone? Oh, that’s fine, Mark! You just go play sheriff!”
(Reader’s Note: Not only is Mark the only officer in town, he is, in fact, the sheriff)
Every once in a while, when I’m going through my to-do items at home, I’ll come across the sticky note I wrote a while back that says, “What am I doing with my life?”
I haven’t been able to answer that question, so the note goes back to the bottom of the pile, below the gas bill and the newspaper clippings of singles events.
