Review - Prowl (2010 - Dir. Patrik Syversen)

Made by After Dark Films for what looks like a small amount of money. The budget is used well in the first half by setting the story in the back of a truck and an abandoned slaughter house. There is a smattering of tension created in these claustrophobic and dirty environments.

The film suffers from the 'I severely dislike most of these characters' syndrome which is so prevalent in Horror films at the moment. You want most of the characters to die quickly and painfully, which removes a lot of the tension. Surely it would be more unsettling to see characters who you have warmed to and actually care about being eaten by crazed vampires. 


It also suffers from useless hyper fast cuts in the actiony gore scenes. Well what gore there is. Star Wars had an arm cut off and that's virtually all we get here. Star Wars is rated as a U. Not an 18, then. There is some off screen violence, but who cares about that in this sort of film. Any blood that there is you can't really see because of the speed of the cuts. Fulci (director of City of the Living Dead) knew what he was doing, slowly lingering over the gore. The most effective scenes are shots of the heroine Amber (Courtney Hope) running in slow motion across fields. They create a real sense of atmosphere.


On a positive note Courtney Hope is believable and likeable in the main role. The only other likeable character is a dubious truck driver (Bruce Payne) who makes more of his character than you would think. Mrs evlkeith quite enjoyed it and thought that it was fairly tense. You can probably add a couple of points to the rating if you haven't already seen 45,000 horror films. 


Oh, I almost forgot. It's got one of the worst skinny dipping scenes ever. Can you actually wear clothes when you go skinny dipping?
3/10
evlkeith




If you like this you could also try:
30 Days of Night, Near Dark, The Horde, Husk.