Review: Prowl (2011)

"We're pretty sure this is a Vampire flick, although other monsters do like to drink blood too..."

Sub-Genre- Vampire/Creature
Cast Members of Note- Ruta Gedmintas, Courtney Hope, Joshua Bowman, Perdita Weeks, Saxon Trainor and Bruce Payne.

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 in Butthole, Nebraska 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.

Forget keeping your wits about you, drink up!

After a night of partying (which could have been implied, saving 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 (???) Amber and her gang head out on a road trip... and make it about 4 minutes outside of town before nerd-boy's creeper 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. Why not.

They all climb in the trailer of the semi (which contains 2 pallets of boxed blood), and play strip poker to pass the time, 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.

Kick! Kick and you'll live, woman!

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? I'm sure not going to spoil things for you, but suffice it to say that it's not hard to see what's coming... I mean both the twist and the fact that no, cell phones will never work in Horror movies (for obvious reasons.)

Someone needs to tell them that they'd have a better chance of surviving if they were naked.

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 on even more 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 us 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.

"Um... what exactly are we?"

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 they 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, and all that we're left with is "run...hide...repeat..." for the rest of the movie? Like I mentioned elsewhere in this stunning review, it's a bit loose and could have been marginally better with a little more tightening of the narrative.

HONESTLY, WHO DOES THIS?

The dreaded shaky-cam is ever present throughout this one, and damn if it isn't distracting as shit. 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.

SHE DOESN'T LIKE SHAKY-CAM EITHER.

The bloodletting in this one is decent enough; nothing too over the top, but there was enough to make us marginally happy. Severed heads, rent limbs, gushing throat wounds... not bad at all.

Some quick bra and panties action, and that's about it. Boo! (That's not a scary boo either, but one of dissatisfaction!)

Oh yeah, and thanks for the teased lesbian kiss that never quite happened either! Boo again!

Hitchhiking is a dangerous endeavor. Also, it's always the quiet chicks...

"WHY DIDN'T WE JUST WALK BACK TO TOWN?!?"

Prowl is a decent enough flick, if you can look past its slow and nonsensical aspects. 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 even more, mainly because she's cute as hell and can act. It's a fun ride that manages to be just better than average, so see it if you can.

C+

Prowl is available now on DVD and VOD.

Whether in The Tudors, The Borgias, Lip Service or some random Horror flick, we'll take Ruta Gedmintas any way we can get her. *Naked is preferable.

Courtney Hope and Perdita Weeks can come along for the ride too.