Review #108: Prom Night (1980)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Paul Lynch (Director): Savage Planet (2006)

Jamie Lee Curtis (Kim): Halloween

Leslie Nielsen (Mr. Hammond): Forbidden Planet

Anne-Marie Martin (Wendy): Sledgehammer T.V. series

Prom Night Trailer:


Plot:

Five young teenagers were playing a game in an abandoned warehouse one day when one of them, Robin, fell out the third story window and fell to her death. The four (Nick, Wendy, Kelly and Jude) made a pact and swore never to talk about this to anyone, pretend it never happened and then bolted. That's where I Know What You Did Last Summer ripped that idea off from! The police arrived and found the dead girl, but no one knew what had happened. The murder was blamed on a local sexual predator, Leonard, who was then locked up.

Six years later, they have all grown up into high schoolers at Hamilton High and are seniors getting ready for prom. One by one each of them received a mysterious phone call from an unknown person threatening them. The police learn that Leonard escaped the institution and is on the loose and may have possibly returned.

Meanwhile, Robin's family members mourn the anniversary of Robin's death. Robin's older brother and sister are Alex and Kim (Jamie Lee Curtis). Kim starts to witness strange events start happening around the school leading up to the Prom. Mirrors break, and unexplained noises happen around her. Is someone stalking her? The four teens continue to receive threatening messages in some form and fashion as police frantically search for Leonard.

Prom night comes and the teens happily celebrate by dancing, drinking and having sex. A ski masked, tight black leotard killer starts picking them off one by one, taking out revenge on the unsuspecting teens as their prom dance goes on.

Prom Night is a classic early 80's slasher film. It's campy and for the most part, dark. It follows a simple formula: hack up teens! It has all the elements of a great horror movie...Sex, drugs and Rock N' Roll! Prom Night had it all...even if the sex part was mostly teasing the audience. And the Rock N' Roll part was disco music. I guess they all can't be winners! But anyways, besides the "pact of friends don't tell" reference earlier, many of it's scenes has been incorporated into horror movies in years to come. Was it following the simple formulas created by it's predecessors or did it come up with these elements? Hmm.

Okay, let's not kid ourselves, it probably ripped off a lot of ideas. For one...probably the biggest...it's kind of a Carrie rip off. I know it has nothing to do with a pissed off chick with telekinetic powers down pouring revenge on her fellow classmates at prom, but I do see shades of it. It's like a film maker said, "Wow, kids getting slaughtered at a high school dance! What a great idea!" And ran with it.

So it stole some other film elements. Big deal. Not the first, nor is it the last. Other horror movie "formula" elements that Prom Night had includes the "scared girl being chased around in a building full of people, but never managed to find a single folk to help her out and eventually dies scene". I'm not sure, but this could have been the first to implement that scene. Don't know, but it's one of the earliest films that I could recall seeing that crap in.

Prom Night was also one of the pioneers in using the "who dunnit" mysterious masked murder. Keep the audience second guessing on who the killer is. In the early 80's, Hollywood beat this into the ground over and over in cheesy horror movies. That same formula gets used over and over even today. Scream, IKWYDLS, Urban Legend, etc. etc.

Prom Night also features the killer is always hiding in the shadows, and peering over the tree branches look. We never get a full glimpse of the killer until the director wants us to at the end.

It was the original Scream Queen, Jamie Lee Curtis's third horror movie in a short two year span that had landed her on the map. Halloween and The Fog are the other two films. Just in case you forgot who she is...pictured left. Her role in the film isn't as dominant as other films. She is the lead heroine character, but I don't think she was predominately featured. I had a sense that the film makers gave her the lead role just to attract audiences, but I didn't think she did anything special.

Best line in the movie comes when a girl interrupts a sex scene with her boyfriend at prom. He turns to her and says, "If you don't. I know plenty who will." And then he leaves. A man's confidence at his best.

Wow, looking back at it, I'm surprised they spawned three other sequels and a horrible remake off this baby! Well, maybe not by a sequel or remake...but two additional sequels? Please.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on July 18, 1980
-The line, "It's not who you come with, it's who takes you home," appears in all the Prom Night movies
-Brock Simpson appears in all four Prom Night movies