The Prowler is a 1981 American slasher film directed by Joseph Zito, written by Neal Barbera and Glenn Leopold, and starring Vicky Dawson, Christopher Goutman, Lawrence Tierney, Cindy Weintraub, and Farley Granger.

The film follows a group of college students in a coastal California town who are stalked and murdered during a graduation party by an apparent World War II veteran who killed his ex-girlfriend in 1945.

In some international territories, the film was released under the alternate title Rosemary's Killer in a version that truncated many of its graphic murder sequences.

Though it has received mixed reviews from critics, The Prowler developed a cult following in the years after its release, with praise aimed at its hard-edged violence—showcasing special effects by Tom Savini—as well as its atmosphere.

[7] On March 12, 1944 in Avalon, California, during World War II, a woman named Rosemary writes a letter to her boyfriend, breaking up with him.

While there, they are attacked by a mysterious prowler wearing an army combat uniform, who impales them both with a pitchfork and leaves behind a red rose.

On June 28, 1980, college senior Pam MacDonald is making last-minute arrangements for that night's graduation ball, the first to be held since the 1945 murders.

Convinced the prowler from earlier is the same killer, Mark and Pam head back to the dance and warn the chaperone, Allison, about the possible danger.

He informs Pam that the state police told him that the reported prowler had been caught three hours earlier and could not have killed Lisa.

Critic Stephen Deusner of The Washington Post has interpreted The Prowler as a "a sly, strange statement about the stakes of war".

[8] Scholar James Kendrick notes The Prowler as thematically linked to such slasher films as The Burning (1981), in which psychological trauma plays an integral role in the acts of murder committed, and where a present event provides the traumatized, maddened villain an "opportunity to take revenge on the guilty parties or their symbolic substitutes".

[12] Contemporaneous newspaper reports cite a budget of between $400,000 and $500,000,[12] though Zito has stated that the film ultimately cost $1 million to produce.

[19] Initially, Avco Embassy Pictures, who had previously released the slasher Prom Night (1980), expressed interest in distributing The Prowler.

[20] It opened regionally in Louisville, Kentucky and Dayton, Ohio, on June 26, 1981,[21][22] followed by a release in Kansas City, Missouri, on September 4, 1981.

[3] The Prowler was released under the alternate title Rosemary's Killer[24] in Australia and Europe in a cut that excises much of Tom Savini's gore effects.

[27] The Encyclopedia of Horror (1986) reports that "Savini's particularly graphic special effects resulted in most of the murders being trimmed in the British release print".

[25] Linda Gross of the Los Angeles Times panned the film for its violent content, adding that "director Joseph Zito prowls around aimlessly without creating an authentic sense of locale.

What the film lacks in narrative drive, coherence, and performance, it makes up with thoughtful lighting, strong cinematography from Raoul Lomas and an uncredited João Fernandes, and, of course, Savini’s lovingly overblown and impossible splatter effects".

[30] The Encyclopedia of Horror notes that like My Bloody Valentine the film moves away from the genre's usual Midwestern setting, but that it does little with the new location, nor with its potentially interesting returning G.I.

[32] AllMovie called it a "run-of-the-mill entry in the early '80s slasher film cycle" that "benefits from an unexpected amount of technical gloss, but has little else to offer".