Jamie
I have long contended that any movie is improved by setting it in high school or college. Take a concept (Fatal Attraction for example). Now set it in high school… wait a second! I now have Swimfan! It’s amazing. See? Let’s try another. Uh… Jurassic Park… OK. Dinosaurs loose on a college campus? Sign me up. Should I try one more? The Killing Fields… Alright, well that… yeah, nevermind. So it almost always works. In fact this could be another character of mine, similar to Franchise Man. The School Fool. A fool for all things school. Anyway, this explains why when it became clear that Prom Night was a possibility for the 2008 entry in the cycle I was unreasonably excited. It also helps that horror films are the original “improved by setting it in high school or college” standard. So screw you, Disaster Movie and Extreme Movie… 2008 is for the School Fool.
To recap, Donna is a high school freshman when her whole family is killed by a teacher who has become obsessed with her. Three years later, she is living with her Aunt and Uncle and on the verge of Senior Prom/college when nightmares of the event return. Everyone including her boyfriend and friends want her to just have a nice night and not think about all that bad stuff. Unfortunately, there is a reason to think about it as the local police find out that days prior the teacher escaped from jail and is heading her way. So what is a police officer to do? On the one hand they could swoop in and lock down Donna to keep her safe. On the other they could let her have some fun at prom. Lucky for us these police officers think option 2 is just dandy (cause otherwise this movie would be pretty boring). At the prom Donna and everyone are having a great time… in fact, it’s such a typical prom that you start to wonder why you are even watching it. At that point the teacher starts to snag different people who leave the prom and kill them. Donna never leaves the prom, though, cause she’s a prom fiend so she doesn’t get killed… that is until the police figure out that they totally screwed up and pull the fire alarm. Donna just thinks it’s a fire so runs up to her room to grab her mother’s scarf and is confronted by the teacher. Fortunately she is fast like a rabbit and escapes. The police take her home while they scour the hotel for the teacher, but realize too late that he also escaped their clutches. At that point he kills Donna’s boyfriend and tries to kill her, but the police arrive just in time to kill him instead. Donna is probably extra scarred by this and the police probably have to answer a bunch of questions regarding their competence. THE END.
Prom Night is a whole lotta nonsense. I used to say about some films that you could “see the seams” when everything seemed manufactured. The rules of the world appeared to no longer apply given the amount of suspension of disbelief required to watch the film. Prom Night feels that way. The bad guy is just some loser teacher and yet he functions like he’s a supervillain or something. They make sure the police grumble about not being told the dude escaped from jail for three days because you need to have them know about him and yet not have enough time to warn the girl before she heads to prom. You need her to start having nightmares again so the family can logically (well, almost logically) decide that not telling her about the escaped killer is the best course of action. It really is narratively bonkers. That being said… it’s hard not to like a silly high school horror film. I enjoyed the experience of watching this objectively terrible movie. Oh and our boy Kellen Lutz has one of the funniest scenes of the millennium in the film. I almost wanted to get the DVD from the library just to burn the scene… but then I didn’t.
Hot Take Clam Bake! This is a stealth horror remake of Can’t Hardly Wait. Preston is obsessed with Amanda just like our teacher is obsessed with Donna. He looks forward to the end of senior year event to finally make his big move, much like the teacher chooses prom as the target of his escape. Preston is even mistaken for a creepo by Amanda at first… which is riffing on an alternative reading of the film (that he’s in fact a stalker/psycho). This take is driven by the fact that Donna wakes up in the final scene with Can’t Hardly Wait playing on television and now that I’ve written this all out I actually believe that wasn’t a mistake. This is not longer even a hot take. This was all inspired by Can’t Hardly Wait. Hot Take Temperature: Antarctica.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about a crazed stalker at a fancy pants prom?! Let’s go!
Might as well get this out of the way: I watched the original in prep for the remake. Pretty good. I think maybe Prom Night was the true moment where Jamie Lee Curtis was crowned the Scream Queen. Three movies, three horror films, and this was arguably the second slasher. Would do Terror Train the next year. The only issue with the film really is that they really telegraph the killer. Like, it is so obvious that your mind starts playing tricks on you and you become convinced they could not possibly have done the most obvious thing … but they did. Some fun kills though, particularly the van going over the cliff.
As for this, woof! (But in a good way). Like, abominable, but in the most satisfying and amazing way.
We have a crazed killer for sure, but you know who it is from the jump. An interesting twist, but I can’t say it really works because doesn’t this just become a serial killer thriller in slasher clothing? If we are talking supernatural here with Freddy, Jason, or Michael then I think you get away with the unstoppable force killer, but here you did need a little mystery to amp up the thrills.
Speaking of mystery, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to pinpoint precisely what game the father was watching on television when he was murdered. It was the November 11, 2000 Oregon St game at Arizona in their one-loss season. Prom Night definitely takes place much later, so we are talking about a Oregon St superfan here. Confirmed! There is actually a lot of Oregon stuff in the film. The boyfriend was definitely going to Oregon St the next year, and they talk about a car getting stolen from a commuter going to Portland, and there is an Oregon St Athletics jacket.
I have a dumb theory about that actually. In my opinion the Oregon stuff was a bit over the top. But the more I thought about it the more I realized it was probably because the director was a huge television director. So a director who has to, potentially, take a script and decide how to best set this film in “Oregon” or wherever while using just establishing shots and filming in LA. And the way you do that is by making a guy an Oregon St superfan and throwing a jacket in a truck, et voila, I’m instantly transported to Oregon.
Oh the movie? The kills are lame (like … really lame. Confusingly lame) and there is no tension at all. The only slight saving grace is the extremely odd presence of Idris Elba as the cop chasing the killer.
But ultimately this film is amazing in the same way the OC is amazing. It scratches a very specific itch. That itch being watching 30 year olds playing high school students with dumb high school drama and weird high school parties.
I already explained this is an incredible Setting as a Character (Where?) for Oregon. And what a better MacGuffin (Why?) that the love of an unattainable beauty, which isn’t a real MacGuffin, but I don’t care because this film deserves more superlatives. Amazing and confounding as it might seem there is no twist in this slasher film. This film is BMT through and through I would watch it a thousand times.
Read about my Prom Night sequel in the Quiz. Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 