PROWL
Sub-Genre- Vampire/Creature
Cast Members of Note- Ruta Gedmintas, Courtney Hope, Joshua Bowman, Perdita Weeks, Saxon Trainor and Bruce Payne.
What's it About?-Amber is a cute yet sullen, vaguely dissatisfied, small town girl just itching to run away to the big city. There's just nothing for her here anymore, and everything will be all better once she seeks her fortune elsewhere. Her friends are all stereotypical stoners, nerds, jerks and sluts, who don't understand why she wants to leave Podunk Falls because it's so awesome there. I don't think I can recall 500 other movies that have the same set up. Nope. Sounds original to me.
After a night of partying (which could have been implied, saving us 20 minutes), she ropes the nerdy kid (whom she totally blew off the night before) into driving her to Chicago, so she can get there in time to rent an apartment (???) So Amber and her gang head out on a road trip... and make it 4 minutes outside of town before Nerd-boy's van takes a shit. Now, instead of walking the 4 minutes back to town, they flag down a semi, and beg the driver to take them all to Chicago. Sure. They all climb in the trailer of the semi, with 2 pallets of boxed blood, and play stip poker, oblivious to the fact that this may be the worst idea ever. They make that discovery soon enough though, when the truck backs up to a warehouse, the door opens, and a bunch of vampire-like things start to eat them...
Will Amber and her hot girlfriend survive? Is there a secret twist that no one can see coming, just waiting to be revealed? Will cell phones ever be able to get a signal in a horror movie again? I'm sure not going to spoil it for you, but suffice it to say that it's not hard to see what's coming... I mean the twist, and the fact that no, cell phones will never work in horror movies.
The Good- The best part about Prowl was Courtney Hope; we bought into her character and liked Amber, which made the rest of the movie bearable. She was a fun final girl that got more interesting as the movie progressed, and we'd love to see her expand even more upon that in a sequel. you know it's coming, even if it's with a smaller budget.
The movie itself is a quick, decent ride for the money, giving enough action and blood to make it worthwhile. The premise is interesting enough, even if the writing is a bit lackluster, although it does end rather abruptly leaving we the audience with way too many unanswered questions.
The Bad- A lot of the movie made little sense, and that was because of a weak script. The kids break down within sight of town, and the hitch a creepy/potentially dangerous ride with a trucker rather than jog home and find another ride? Or how about once the actions starts, pretty much everyone is killed off within 45 seconds, leaving run...hide...repeat... for the rest of the movie? Like I mention elsewhere in this stunning review, it's a bit loose and could have been marginally better with a little more tightening of the narrative.
The Downright Horrendous- The dreaded shaky-cam is ever present throughout this one, and damn if it isn't distracting. It didn't really ruin anything, but why can't horror directors just keep it to a bare minimum? Along with jump scares, telling musical cues and obligatory twist endings, shaky cam is a detriment in almost every instance that it's used.
The Gory- The bloodletting in this one is decent enough; nothing too over the top, but enough to make us marginally happy. Severed heads, rent limbs, gushing throat wounds... not bad.
The Naked- Some quick bra and panty action, and that's about it. Boo! (That's not a scary boo either, but one of dissatisfaction!)
What did we learn?- Hitchhiking is a dangerous endeavor. Also, it's always the quiet chicks...
The Master Says- C+ Prowl is a decent enough flick, if you can look past the slow parts and the nonsensical aspects of it all. It's got some good kill scenes, has a bevy (3) of hot chicks to gawk at, and manages to be fairly interesting despite being a bit looser than it should have been. I personally watched it for Ruta Gedmintas, although by the end Courtney Hope had captured my interest, mainly because she's cute as hell and can act. It's a fun ride, that manages to be just better than average.Final Thoughts- Whether in The Tudors, The Borgias, Lip Service or some random horror flick... we'll take Ruta any way we can get her. Naked is preferable.
