The Night the Prowler

Director: Jim Sharman
Screenwriters: Patrick White

Institute History

  • 1985 Sundance Film Festival

Description

From the director of The Rocky Horror Picture Show comes this surprising and very different drama-comedy dealing more with the mind than with the flesh The Bannister family is, by all appearances, normal ad nauseum—until the night the prowler breaks into their daughter’s bedroom. This crisis prompts a variety of reactions within the household, from neurotic dismissal by the mother, emotional breakdown by the father and false empathy from the boyfriend. But to the doughtier this apparently harmful but enigmatic event is transformed into the beginnings of her search for self-expression. The Night The Prowler starts out as a comedy of manners but becomes, after the alleged attack, an odyssey of self-discovery for a brooding but complacent teenager. Based on a story by Australia’s Nobel Prize winning author Patrick White, the film is by all accounts a radical change of style for director Sherman and A significant development in the current resurgence of Australian cinema.

Screening Details

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