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Prom Night

"Let's go back to the van. I think I need another joint."
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Leslie Nielsen, Casey Stevens, Ann-Marie Martin, Pita Oliver
Rating: 7.5/10
Directed By: Paul Lynch
Runtime: 94 minutes

On April 12th, the remake of Prom Night hit theaters and became the number one movie in the country due to Hollywood's insistence that every horror film be PG-13 so stupid kids who don't know better can pad studio's thinning coffers. This, I believe, is my generation's fault. A lot of movie execs my age watched horror films they weren't supposed to when they were thirteen; this was part of the attraction then as horror films were R-rated and parents wouldn't allow their kids an all-access pass to that kind of entertainment so it was this breaking of taboo while we scrambled to view the adult subject matter, as well as large amounts of adult tits and violence, that left their impression on my generation. Today, the less smart of my age group got jobs in Tinseltown and (being idiots) remembered the visceral thrill of the scary movie at age thirteen but forgot that the movies were good and what it took to see them. Now the emphasis is to pass on their ignorance and pack theaters with another generation of morons by watering down and absolutely destroying a genre (or even impressions of a genre) by forgetting the adult.

Don't let me leave you in suspense, either. The new Prom Night sucks ass. Akin to When a Stranger Calls (2006) and Black Christmas (2006), Prom Night changes the plot, changes the characters and changes the premise, basically Disney-fying the horror process. The casting is a who's-who of mediocre talent culled from other piece of shit vehicles: Brittany Snow (Pacifier), Jessica Stroup (Hills Have Eyes 2), Jana Kramer (ROTLD: Necropolis) and Josh Leonard (Blair Witch) and the movie, not able to fall back on R-rated goodness, struggles with "pop-outs" and false scares worthy of Sesame Street. Even at thirteen my mind would rebel at this shit. So let us not waste our time on the terrible and focus on what brought us together in the first place: Prom Night (1980).

Prom Night is a low budget Canadian thriller starring Scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis, fresh off impressing in Halloween (1978) and The Fog (1980). The original has been a debated "classic" over the years and I believe it takes a lot of heat because it's deliberately paced and focuses a lot on the "teen" part of "teen thriller." This may bother a few but I feel it adds a depth to the characters other films don't even bother with and contains the same situations and archetypes it's successors would go on to pirate mercilessly. Sure, the video is dark and grainy, reflecting cheap film stock and a bad transfer but it's a low-budget flick that provides a decent whodunit which informed several subsequent features alá Scream (1996) and I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997).

The film opens with gritty shots of a derelict school and kid's voices playing a game called "killer," which seems to consist of running and screaming "kill" at someone until they fall out a second-story window (in this case, Jamie Lee's little sister who takes it hard but sells the bump good). The other kids make a pact to take this secret to the grave and split. The plan works too, as some pedophile captures the cop's imagination and they bust him, only to have him Michael Myers himself out of an institution 12 years later when the story picks up on prom night.

In the intervening years, it is fun to note, all the kids involved with killing Jamie Lee's sister have now become Jamie's best friends. Like typical seniors, they love the prom so when each gets a creepy phone call to "come out and play" it only serves to get them thinking more about prom, which is a shame because it's pretty obvious that someone knows what happened to Jamie's sister and this call is what we in the review business refer to as a "warning." Yet there is a subplot wherein Wendy (Ann-Marie Martin) and fellow "killer" Nick (Casey Stevens) have just broken up before prom but Nick is going to be voted king with Jamie Lee as queen that forces the kids to ignore silly things like a crazed maniac calling them in favor of a Carrie-style revenge on Jamie Lee for being so hot.

Even though the kids succumb to infighting, the filmmakers use every trick in the book to keep the mystery building. Director Paul Lynch utilizes overheads, zooms, perspective shots, anything he can to bring the eerie. Like other exceptional horror films, when nothing is really going on a sense of dread can be achieved by simple framing of a shot. When Jamie Lee and Nick are rehearsing the events for prom, their close-ups feature them with huge areas of black backgrounds over their shoulders. This is usually a horror cue for something appearing there and builds that thought in the audiences' minds. It's a great way to keep the tension during static scenes. The script has a great cast of suspects to guess at as well, from the creepy handyman to the crazed pedophile to Leslie Nielsen, who is in the movie just long enough to cast suspicion on himself as a revenge-driven father angered over his daughter's demise (his scene cutting a rug with Jamie Lee while remaining rather dignified is worth the rest of his limited appearance). The big reveal is not super-obvious and more than even most straight thrillers deliver in terms of suspects.

The movie also holds up to many of the 80's horror conventions it helped spawn. The first and arguably most paramount is the naked sex stuff and this comes 60 minutes in as Kelly (Mary Beth Rubens) and her man attempt the two-backed crab until Kelly gets second thoughts. In a true-to-life scene, she gets dumped and ditched for her reluctance to go more than topless (ah, high school) which sets her up for some instant revenge kill as the painfully slow killer gives her the glass throat, inextricably linking sex and death. The camera then flashes to an image of red punch. Brilliant! The next 80's trend covered? More sex! This time 64 minutes in as Jude (Joy Thompson) and her man do the deed and decide to break more mores with some recreational drug use! Stupid ideas and the beginnings of clichés abound as they decide to fuck overlooking a sheer bluff and the boy's glasses break (much like Velma, he's blind without them)! The kid does have a hollowed-out history book full of joints, though (and a lot - I counted 30 on my upconverting HD player). Yet horror movie killers disapprove of underage sex and drug use and love to harass blind kids (or anyone handicapped by their own stupidity) so you don't need a PhD to figure out they're in trouble. Fat, blind, high kid puts up a good fight but drives off the bluff, exploding instantly in mid-air, furthering that convention too.

Prom Night also makes use of the idea of teleportation as the killer is everywhere in the last 30 minutes, killing with impunity. It seems rather Jason-esque, what with that and the slow-ass walk; however, our killer does run, right after Wendy who absolutely blazes in heels. Of course she runs everywhere but safety, right? Biology lab, machine shop. Huge prom in the fucking well-lit gym but noooo, stumble around in the dark, hence suspense. Will Wendy pay for her stupidity? Wendy fights back but prefers hiding, not so much she doesn't give herself away every fucking time though. This segment has a nice "grindhouse" feel to it the whole film would have benefited from. Too bad Wendy gets the axe. Can Jamie Lee escape to safety or will she go the way of Wendy? Only a head-chopping, ECW ending will tell as Jamie interferes, uses the chair and foreign objects to prove she'da been a great valet like Francine.

Some random observations: The dialog is stellar. "Hey, there's Nick. Hey, Nick." "He's an idiot." Jamie Lee Curtis makes a convincing high school chick, which is why she was cast that way in Halloween and here. The cast is very attractive. All the drive-in girls dress like they work at Joe's Crab Shack and all the girl's gym outfits are awesome, especially Jamie Lee in her tennis gear. Pita Oliver's bare-assing of the creepy handyman is funny. The most priceless scene in the film is Jamie Lee in the showers, shirt hanging open, ready to confront evil with a hairbrush. I want to know if the guy who plays Lou (Dave Mucci) is related to stellar director (and good pal) Phil Mucci. Lou is pure class, driving to pick up Wendy, his date, with "the guys," offering her some Jack and telling her "anyway, you look terrific." Jamie Lee gives us some Flashdance early on and her big disco scene is only worth watching because she looks so good. The disco soundtrack will make you want to kill, especially the Prom Night song itself which will make you hate it and everything else.

Prom Night (1980) deserves it's place as a forefather of the 80's boom in horror films, spawning or furthering many of the ideas that made the decade so excellent. Jamie Lee Curtis is eminently watchable and it's status as a classic should be solidified upon one viewing. It's drawbacks to some will be it's deliberate pace, emphasis on character-building and it's low-budgetness. You people can go enjoy the remake with it's emphasis on making money off the backs of thirteen year-olds, the retarded and the uneducated. Myself and a legion of CyberMonkeys will kick back and remember a time when movies were for us adults and will revel in the exemplary Prom Night (1980).




And - a bonus! Jamie Lee Curtis, armed only with her breasts and her hairbrush vs . . . EVIL!