Despite its title, Prom Night is probably not in the top five horror movies that culminate at a high school dance.
It’s hard to overestimate how many slasher flicks were released in the 80’s. They were cheap to produce and offered an almost guaranteed return on investment. They also had a very clear formula that could be followed without being bothered with something so fickle as “creative inspiration.” Prom Night is a prime, albeit early, example of this mercenary approach to filmmaking, but that is hardly an automatic disqualifier for being a scary and entertaining horror movie. Let’s see how it stacks up.
In typical fashion, we start out with the revelation of some past tragedy that will incite the action. In this case, it involves a group of school children playing around in an abandoned building where the taunting of a younger girl leads to her accidental death. If you have any horror savvy at all, I don’t have to tell you that the kids make a pact to keep the accident a secret, and that decision will lead to many of their deaths down the road. Fast forward six years, and the same group of kids are now in high school together, along with the little girl’s two siblings. We spend a lot of time with these teens, learning their personalities and the dynamics of their inter-personal relationships, and I actually appreciate the extended focus on the characters in an effort to make the inevitable slaughter mean something. That said, we know from the title of the movie when the action is going to start, so spending the first two acts during the day of the prom does rob us of any tension we might otherwise feel during these scenes.
The extended setup also allows time to introduce a couple of red herrings (or false leads) to keep us guessing about the identity of the killer that we know is coming. While the most successful slasher films have used iconic characters to sell tickets, much of the genre revolves around an unknown antagonist that can be shockingly revealed at the climax of the film. Prom Night telegraphs two particular threats so heavily that it is an almost certainty that neither of them are the real killer. Truthfully, I don’t mind the guessing game. It’s particularly nice to be distracted with the mystery when so little of import is happening on screen. In the third act, we finally get to the titular prom, the promise of revenge is fulfilled, and the killer is unmasked in the climactic final scene.
I was pretty optimistic heading into Prom Night. It’s a 1980 horror movie featuring Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Neilson, and I have a real fondness for the 1987 sequel-in-name-only, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II. Overall, the cast of doomed teenagers is likeable and puts in solid performances for this type of thing. Unfortunately, the direction and editing are pretty rough, and the paint-by-numbers story isn’t saved by any creative kills (well, there’s one that’s pretty good, but I had mostly checked out by then). I often got the sensation that I was watching a weird TV edit, but there was just enough gore and nudity to make that seem unlikely (maybe it was a Canadian or European edit?). Director Paul Lynch makes some unconventional choices that are meant to be stylistically flashy, but come across disjointed and limp. His chase sequences are not bad, but the best that can be said about him is that he really knows how to shoot a dance scene. It’s probably a bad sign that the most competent and memorable part the movie is an extended disco sequence between Jamie Lee Curtis and her on-screen boyfriend. I suppose that I should have known to keep my optimism in check, because of course I would have already heard about a Curtis-starring slasher vehicle coming off the heels of Halloween if it had been some sort of masterpiece. Alas, Prom Night falls into the over-crowded pile of “not good, but not terrible enough to be fun” horror movies.
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