The Prowler vs Harry Warden
The FORBIDDEN Death Battle Prediction Blog Episode 21
Original Fight 11
The Prowler (The Prowler, 1981) vs Harry Warden (My Bloody Valentine, 1981)
Otto, What the Hell? Where’s Butcher vs Stain, You Lazy Bastard?
It’s coming. With apologies to Frosty Toucan, I wanted to get in some fights for the Halloween season, especially since Death Battle screwed everyone by scheduling the werewolf brawl for November 1st.
What’s the Theme Here? Who Are These Characters?
They’re masked slashers from the early days of slasher movies–so early in fact, that Jason put on his sackhead the same year they released and Halloween released only three years earlier. They’re both killers that went on a killing spree years before the movie began, went to ground, became legends of the small towns they menanced, and emerged to kill again at a courtship celebration for young people–for the Prowler, a graduation dance, and for Harry Warden, a Valentine’s Day dance.
The Prowler
“I’m here for our date, Rose…”
Allow me to put on my teacher hat for a moment. Why was Penelope one of the most celebrated women of antiquity? It was because she had a husband absent for years and 108 suitors and still remained loyal. To the Greeks, who knew well what wifes get up to while their husbands throw themselves into the meatgrinder that is war, Penelope was as superhumanly heroic as Odysseus.
Dear John letters are perhaps one of the cruelest things a woman can do to a man. Imagine yourself trying to get the image of your fellow soldiers chewed to pieces by a machine gun out of your head and mail call comes around. Finally, you’re going to get a few words from your girl to help blunt that existential horror festering in your heart.
And she dumps you from the comfort of the homefront.
Have fun with the Japanese sweety! Me and 4-F are going to be justtttt fine!
Dear John letters make a really good motivation for a psycho killer, so it’s no surprise that it only took three years after Halloween for The Prowler to call dibs on the concept.
It’s 1945. An unknown (until the ending of the film) GI gets a Dear John letter from his lover, Rosemary. Three months later in Avalon, California, Rosemary is attending a graduation dance with her new boyfriend. When they sneak away from the crowd to make out, a mysterious man (three guesses who) in a black uniform and really cool face mask cuts the outdoor lights and then, in darkness, spears the lovers together with a pitchfork.
Now it’s 1980, and Avalon hasn’t had a graduation dance in decades. It brings back too many memories, especially to the mayor who happens to be Rosemary’s father. But the kids are going to try anyway this year.
What’s the worst that could happen? A madman returns to the scene of his first crime after decades? What do you think this is, Halloween?
Our murderous soldierboy returns to dispatch noncoms, and because this is an early slasher back when giallo whodunit influences were stronger in the genre we don’t know who the killer is. Is it the boyfriend of the final girl? Is it the creepy auto repair guy? Is it Rosemary’s own father?
It’s sheriff George. Spoilers for a film released at the start of Reagan’s administration!
The shocking reveal…isn’t so shocking since the film’s character dynamics are, to be kind, underdeveloped. The soldier could have been anyone and it would have had the same impact–that is to say, none.
Prowler...isn’t a good movie. It’s cult status is carried by the awesome Tom Savini kills on display, but those kills are only a few minutes out of an hour and twenty. You want to see Prowler? Just watch the kill compilation at the start of this article. That’s all you need.
Poor George is like his film–he underperforms. He doesn’t even win a purple heart for his efforts–2 prolog kills plus 5 present kills is pretty lightweight for a slasher. But the final girl does have a Deliverance style freak-out at the end where she daydreams being attacked by the corpses of her friends, so George managed to get something like a win by mentally scarring his prey. If you can’t beat ‘em, break ‘em.
They sure as hell aren’t going to have a dance next year.
Stalking
–Turned off the outdoor lights to sneak up on his victims in 1945.
–Snuck up on and knocked out his deputy Mark while Mark was hunting for him. George spares Mark because he’s his deputy–you don’t see that happen often in slasher films!
–Locked the final girl in the house before proceeding to chase her.
Slashing
–Got a score of 7.
–George armed himself for a night of extreme speed dating with a pitchfork (which makes him the second slasher of 1981 to use a pitchfork after sackhead Jason), a bayonet, likely an M1905 going by its length, and a shotgun.
I bet you thought Scream was the first time slashers used firearms, right? Nope. As I pointed out in Leatherface vs Ghostface, there’s not much that’s original about Scream.
George tried not to use his shotgun–it’s probably much more fun to chase people around with sharp objects–but he did have it and he did use it to defend himself.
–Pulled off a double-kill in 1945 by stabbing a pitchfork first through the lover of his cheating girlfriend and then through her. The best part of the kill is that the girlfriend sees it coming.
–Stuck a bayonet through the top of a dude’s skull and out through his neck and held his mouth shut while he died. It is, without a doubt, one of the greatest slasher movie kills of all time.
–One-upped Norman Bates by stabbing a showering girl with a pitchfork instead of a knife and lifting her.
Surviving
–For a guy old enough to order off the senior’s menu, George is pretty damn durable. He must have stacked the Japanese like cordwood back in the Big One. At the climax of the film, Otto, best-named character of the film and your standard creepy guy that’s just in the film to be a red herring, shoots George in the chest with a shotgun. This doesn’t kill George, who kills Otto with his own shotgun before attacking final girl Pam who stabs him in the back with his own pitchfork. That still doesn’t take him down, and George fights with Pam over his own shotgun. Pam manages to pull the trigger while it’s aimed right under George’s head, and boom goes the head (and its years before Scanners). What an exit! It’s not Jason’s death from part IV, but it’ll do.
It told you Prowler was a Tom Savini kill showcase.
Harry Warden
“It happened once, it happened twice, close the dance or it’ll be thrice.”
Twenty years ago, in the small Canadian mining town of Valentine Bluffs (the small town with a big heart!), two mining supervisors half-assed their check of the methane gas levels to attend the annual Valentine’s Day dance. The resulting explosion buried the miners alive.
If this was a golden age Superman story, Kal-L would show up around this time to rescue the miners and force the supervisors to spend a night trapped inside so they learn what it’s like. But since this isn’t a golden age Superman story, the miners are all dead by the time rescue crews dig them out days later–all but one, a man named Harry Warden who survived by eating his fellow miners.
Why they didn’t commit Harry to a psychiatric hospital right then and there is anyone’s guess. Maybe he was on one of Canada’s infamous health care waiting lists? But after being rescued, Harry puts on his full mining uniform with a gasmask and headlamp and takes his revenge by killing the two supervisors with a pickaxe. Then he’s committed, but not before vowing that he would return to punish the town if they ever had another Valentine’s Day dance.
The town doesn’t put on a Valentine’s Day dance for decades. But after twenty years, they finally decide to risk it. Harry Warden’s locked away, after all. What’s he going to do? Escape? What do you think this is, Halloween?
But sheriff Jake Newby receives a valentine warning him to close the dance–or else. Then one of the dance’s organizers, a kindly grandmother named Mabel, gets killed and stuffed in a washing machine. And when sheriff Newby calls the funny farm, they tell him that they’ve lost all track of Harry Warden in their records. They don’t know if he’s dead, alive, …or released.
Man, this really isn’t a good movie for Canadian health care.
It seems Harry Warden is back for vengeance. Sheriff Newby closes the dance, but the town’s rowdy, young minors and their girlfriends decide to hold it in secret at the mine–the same mine that Harry Warden was trapped inside.
Oh dear. What could possibly happen to them?
But wait, there’s a twist!
Harry Warden isn’t Harry Warden. At the end of the movie, the funny farm finally gets their act together and learns that Harry Warden died a couple of years ago. So who is the dude pretending to be Harry Warden?
It’s Axel!
Axel is final girl Sarah’s boyfriend (nothing kills your faith in women like hybristophilia) driven to a murderous rage by Sarah’s ex T.J. returning to Valentine Bluffs.
If the film just had the mask fall off at the climax to show Axel, it would have been alright. Axel disguising his jilted lover murder spree with the legend of Harry Warden works as a plot. But the film adds that Axel’s father was one of the targets of Harry Warden’s rampage–and Harry killed him in front of little Axel. Harry then became Axel’s twisted father figure, and Axel was determined to keep the legend of Harry Warden alive at all cost.
We’ll see who wins the fight, but in terms of movies Axel beats George hands down. I had way more fun watching My Bloody Valentine than Prowler. Prowler is a Tom Savini kill showcase, but My Bloody Valentine is legitimately a pretty fun movie. It’s got a lot of fun elements copied from other films combined in a nice hour-and-twenty minutes package. It’s got the “boisterous group of horny friends with frictious internal power dynamics” element from The Burning, the “we can’t close our celebration!” element from Jaws, cannibalism from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the cozy “holiday time in a small town” atmosphere from Halloween. And speaking of Halloween, it’s a great film to watch for Halloween with some buddies, Valentine’s Day theming aside. Watch My Bloody Valentine with some friends, then bring up a highlight reel of Prowler kills as a chaser.
Stalking
–Distracts and bewilders his prey by leaving cute valentines filled with threatening rhyming messages and hearts both of the candy and organ varieties.
–Cut the phone lines. Classic move!
–Broke lights when his prey were in the mines to give himself an advantage as most of them didn’t have headlamps and he did. Then he targeted their guide who had a headlamp.
–Managed to fool his friends into thinking he wasn’t a psychopathic murderer even while he picked them off one-by-one.
Slashing
–Got a score of 16, which is more than twice what George got.
–Axel’s weapon of choice is a pickaxe just like his idol Harry Warden, but he’s smart enough to carry a knife in his boot in case he’s disarmed and sadistic enough to use a nail gun to slowly, slowlyyyyy kill the jovial fat guy by driving nails into his head. It’s a shame, the fat guy was one of the best characters in the movie, but it’s a good slasher film that makes you not want to see the characters die.
–Won a pickaxe vs shovel duel against the final boy.
–Shoved a drill through two victims. I guess two-for-one kills were just in vogue during 1981?
Surviving
–During his climactic pickaxe vs shovel duel with T.J., which rivals the sledgehammer duel from Streets of Fire for being the best “two guys go at each other with industrial tools” fight ever, Axel takes blows to his stomach and back but wins the fight anyway. T.J. has to be saved by Sarah who stuns Axel by hitting him on the back with a rock.
–Survived a cave-in which pinned him to the ground, then when the police came to dig him out and arrest him he cut off his own arm and ran off deeper into the mine screaming about how he and Harry Warden would have their revenge.
Considering there was never a sequel (though there as a crappy remake during the 3D boom of the Obama era) and that Axel just took his arm off in a dirty mine, its likely that he died from blood loss, infection, or a combination of the two.
…But maybe Axel is still down there in the mines. Waiting…waiting, like Harry Warden for anyone foolish enough to try and celebrate Valentine’s Day…
If that’s the case, he better get a move on. Axel would be like what, in his fifties now?
Who Wins?
The Prowler ends up putting a rose on Harry’s corpse.
Well, okay, sure, he only did that to his female victims, but it’s such a cool flourish he should do it to Axel anyway. Didn’t Kingpin do it to his victims in the Daredevil movie? See, it can work for dead guys as well as girls! And how is George supposed to know it’s a guy underneath all that gear and gasmask? The opening to My Bloody Valentine demonstrated in detail why you shouldn’t assume the gender of a masked miner. You can go check it if you don’t believe me, but be sure you check it alone. The scene may be, ah, too frightening for anyone else.
This was a pretty close fight to call. In terms of stalking ability, both were about equal with Axel having the slight edge. Both slashers knew how to manipulate the environment, but Axel took it a step further by luring his victims with brightly colored valentines and duping his victims by acting as their friend. Axel was a smart little psycho, especially for a genre where most killers work like robots. VICTIM SIGHTED. ADVANCE TOWARD VICTIM. STAB. STAB.
In terms of slashing ability, again both were about equal, but George had slight edge this time. Both could pull off sick double-kills by driving their weapons through two bodies at once, but George’s headshot kill was more impressive than Axel’s own. Axel went up through the neck and out the eye, but George went through the top of the skull and out the throat. That means George went through a big hunk of bone Axel avoided entirely.
You might think that a young dude that works every day in a mine would have the edge physicality wise on an old vet, but not here. I guess they really were the greatest generation.
It was the difference in survival ability that ultimately placed George over Axel. Axel could take some serious abuse, but George was just on a whole different level. George took a close-range shotgun blast to the chest that painted the wall behind him in his blood and got up. Axel didn’t have anything comparable.
Even if 2 out of 3 ability gaps didn’t favor George, the fact that George is packing heat is a huge advantage for him. Never bring a pickaxe to a gunfight.
The fight would probably go like this–they fight pickaxe vs pitchfork (MBV reference), Axel disarms George by hitting the shaft of the pitchfork and breaking it in half (Prowler reference), the fight continues as pickaxe vs bayonet with George getting in a few stabs, Axel escapes and George chases him, George gets distracted by a valentine (Roses are red, violets are blue. Out with the old, and in with the new!), and Axel ambushes him with a gutshot.
But wait, he isn’t dead!
George snaps back to life, and blasts Axel with his shotgun (Prowler reference).
But wait, he isn’t dead!
Axel gets back up, but as he fights with George it’s visibly evident he’s in worse shape than his opponent. George takes one of Axel’s arms off, but Axel is still going swinging his pickaxe with one arm and laughing like the maniac he is (MVB reference). George falls back on his military training and patiently dodges the swings until he gets an opening to smash his bayonet right through the top of Axel’s head. Axel’s eye windows turn red from blood and he falls dead.
Cue the rose toss like Dudely.
I’ve always said older slashers are better than younger slashers, but I never meant it like this…
Music Track Name Ideas
C rank: My Bloody Prowler
B rank: Bloody Legends
A rank: They Return To Kill!
S rank: Save Your Last Dance For Me
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