“Killers are coming! Killers are coming!”
Halloween changed everything. John Carpenter’s micro-budget slasher opened the floodgates, all while proving that the long-neglected genre was economically viable. In the wake of Halloween, imitators follow, as is always the case in Hollywood. You had Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine, Silent Scream, The Prowler, When a Stranger Calls, and, of course Prom Night. This one is unique among those others listed due to its pedigree; it stars Leslie Nielsen (pre-Airplane!, when he was a serious dramatic actor) and Laurie Strode herself, Jamie Lee Curtis, whose involvement seemed to raise the esteem of the film. When dealing with knockoffs, all you can do is hope for a good one, knowing full well that a knockoff can’t rise to the level of the original. For instance, Den of Thieves is probably the best knockoff of Heat we’re ever going to get. Prom Night doesn’t quite acquit itself that nicely. Unfortunately, Prom Night serves to illustrate further just how perfect Halloween is.
A little girl dies in Prom Night‘s opening scene. It’s a chilling, bravura way to open a film…or it would be, if it weren’t also lifted from Carpenter, namely from his Assault on Precinct 13. It’s hard to tell how or evey why the girl falls, or even what game they’re supposed to be playing. It looks like a bunch of kids corner another kid and scream at them. And that’s how they…win? Are there rounds? Innings? In any case, the kids all make a pact to never tell anyone how the girl really died. In this way, Prom Night manages to leave its imprint on the genre, as this is almost the exact plot of I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Years later, the kids are all grown up and are getting ready for the prom. The movie fails in basic ways; for instance, it’s hard to tell characters’ relationships to each other. Is Kim dating Nick, or is he dating Wendy? Kim sure doesn’t mind when Nick and Wendy kiss. The first half of Prom Night is more or less laying groundwork, and I have to admit it had me interested. The director, Paul Lynch, is a journeyman with a long history of schlocky thrillers and episodes of Dark Shadows and Ray Bradbury Theater, but he brings a surprising amount of panache and creativity to the movie’s first half. He makes good use of quick flashbacks, just glances back at the cold open to let us know which grown-up version of which kid we’re looking at. There are some major missteps in this film, but Lynch didn’t have to go the extra mile the way he did.
The killing was blamed on a man named Leonard Murch, who was subsequently set ablaze and sent to a convalescent home. The day of the prom, he breaks out, stealing a nurse’s VW. If this sounds like Halloween, good, that means you’ve seen Halloween. We even get a shot of Murch driving the beat-up Beetle, in a shot almost lifted directly from Carpenter’s film. Hilariously, Murch isn’t the killer. It would make sense for the wrongfully-convicted killer to seek vengeance upon those who could have exonerated him, but he’s just a red herring the entire time.
Things proceed from here much the way you’d imagine: every goes to prom and the masked killer starts picking them off. This is where Prom Night goes hilariously off the rails, resulting in one baffling sequence after another. Where do I even begin? Wendy shows up with the school bully, Lou, with some sort of plan to humiliate Kim, the prom queen (and there’s your Carrie influence). This is never explicated. The strangest sequence is a long, long dance scene, one that probably makes up for five minutes of the movie’s run time. Jamie Lee Curtis has some nice movies, but make no mistake, this is an uncut disco dance sequence.
The kills range from slipshod to embarrassing, the latter best shown by the killer attacking one of the girls in the restroom. Lynch makes the ill-advised decision to shoot this in slo-mo, which really brings out how amateur his cast is. (Equally strange, earlier in the film a detective has a voiceover; this never happens again, and no other characters have voiceovers.) There’s an attack on a van that goes on hilariously long, and really just shows what a bumbling doofus this killer is. Michael Myers he is not. This all culminates in a pretty lackluster finale, but it’s always nice watching Curtis get the upper hand on a killer. The reveal of the killer’s identity is somewhat surprising, which is the kindest thing I can say about it.
This is the problem with cult thrillers. Sure, there are some little-seen gems out there like Noroi: The Curse or Pontypool, but these days when something is described as a “cult classic” it means hipsters like to laugh at it during midnight screenings (pretending to like The Room and Birdemic is not a personaly trait, everyone). Is that really worth your time? Prom Night isn’t. We’ve watched worse movies for this feature – yesterday’s Hatchet, for instance – so this one just falls into the category of “forgettable.” Do yourself a favor and go watch the movie that Prom Night is trying so hard to be: Halloween.
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