The Prowler

The Prowler opens in 1945. A soldier stationed overseas receives a 'Dear John' letter from his girlfriend Rosemary, who lives in the small town of Avalon Bay. On the night of the local graduation dance, Rosemary attends with her new boyfriend Roy. A figure in army fatigues and combat helmet follows them into a garden, impales them both with a pitchfork, and leaves their bodies propped on a gazebo. The killer is never caught. The town cancels the graduation dance indefinitely. Major Chatham, an elderly wheelchair-bound figure connected to Rosemary, retreats into a haunted seclusion.

Thirty-five years later the town decides to revive the dance. Sheriff George Fraser is wary but leaves for his annual fishing trip, putting his young deputy Mark London in charge. Mark's girlfriend Pam MacDonald helps the students prepare. News reports of an escaped killer in a nearby town heighten the tension and serve as a red herring. The same figure from 1945 — same WWII gear, same pitchfork and bayonet — returns to Avalon Bay and begins picking students off.

The prowler first targets a couple who slip away from the dance to a nearby house, mirroring the 1945 murders. In one of Tom Savini's signature gore set pieces, he bayonets the boyfriend through the skull mid-shower, then brutally kills the girlfriend and arranges the bodies. Back at the dance, Pam becomes uneasy as friends fail to return and Mark is pulled away by reports about the fugitive.

Mark and Pam start investigating. They search dorms and nearby houses, narrowly missing the prowler at several scenes while the audience sees the aftermath. They go to Major Chatham's decaying mansion suspecting he knows something. Inside, Pam finds a young woman's corpse lying next to the silent Major, suggesting the prowler has been using the house as a hideout or trophy room.

As the night wears on, the killer drifts back toward the dance, killing remaining stragglers. Pam discovers her friends' bodies and realizes the murders are a reenactment of 1945 by someone targeting those connected to the original event. The unmasking comes in the final act: the prowler is Sheriff George Fraser himself — the original jilted soldier who killed Rosemary and Roy decades ago, then settled into life as the town's lawman. His annual fishing trip was always a cover. With the dance reinstated, he donned his old fatigues again.

Pam and Mark corner Fraser in his prowler gear. After a struggle Pam shoots him with a shotgun at point-blank range — Savini's career-peak head-explosion practical effect. Fraser dies in front of them, his double life exposed. The film closes with Pam, back in her room, suddenly seeing the prowler appear at her bedside — a final hallucinatory jump-scare suggesting the trauma will outlast the killer.