Simply Perfect

Memorable, crazy movie

good back-story, and good acting

Expected more

Leslie Nielsen and Jamie Lee Curtis head up cast of long-in-the-tooth "teenage" nobodies in slasher flick about four high school seniors preparing for prom night, still haunted by a prank six years earlier in an abandoned building that resulted in the death of a curious younger girl. The teens have vowed never to breathe a word about the accident, but a witness at the crime scene is now stalking the kids (as if their guilt isn't enough, they have to pay for their collective silence with bloodshed). "Halloween"/"Carrie" combination features excellent cinematography for the genre by Robert New, but nothing of interest plot-wise. The police business on the side is colorless, a segue to principal Nielsen's office is a dead-end, there's a rich bitch who tries intimidating Curtis (who doesn't look rattled). We also get a few outlandish deaths that fail to top the opening sequence, the only well-directed moment in the picture. Followed by a handful of in-name-only sequels and a loose remake in 2008. *1/2 from ****

A children's game goes horribly wrong and a child falls backwards from the first floor window of an abandoned building and dies. The remaining kids vow to never tell anyone about what happened. Its now 7 years on and the children in the gang are preparing for their prom night. They one by one start to receive menacing phone calls...I first saw this and expected to see a C grade slasher movie- one of the many mediocre movies made in the wake of Halloween.Boy, was I wrong! There's loads to love about this movie. Firstly, Jamie Lee Curtis is in it. Shes such a great actress that if shes on the cast list you can expect a stunning performance. Not only is she another kick arse Final Girl but we also get to see her disco moves. She also has a great exchange with the school bitch. This features some fantastically camp lines ('Its not who takes you to the prom. Its about who takes you home!') Jamie wins and has the last word in this verbal volley naturally.Another great feature of this film is that its actually very scary in the appropriate scenes. The killer ringing the teenagers one by one is a scene so threatening and jarring that its a sequence that is one of the scariest I've ever seen in any horror film. The simplicity of the scene (just a hand, a pencil, the list of names and the phone) is extremely effective and downright chilling.The film is also brilliantly chilling as it touches on the subject of paedophilia- a local sex offender is known to the police and they think he is the reason for the dead little girl. They hound him to such a degree that he crashes his car which bursts into flames. The police had no evidence that it was him but hey, hes so disfigured that he now can't commit anymore crimes and is placed in an asylum. And there are the actual kills and the scenes they are contained within which are directed with aplomb. These are very tense and unnerving. OK so this certainly isn't John Carpenter's Halloween but these scenes are still very good for a slasher movie. With Halloween being a major influence on this film there are also the atypical scenes of the female characters talking about, y'know, girls things- boys, hair, going to the prom etc etc. In fact in the book Blood Money it has been suggested that there were two types of advertising for this film- one that dwelt on the themes thought to be more appealing to a young female demographic (the disco music, the relationships and drama within the film) and one that dwelt on what was thought to appeal to the guys- namely the tension, suspense and kills. The film really does feel like a cross between Halloween, Carrie (the prom setting and the potential for carnage in this setting) and Saturday Night Fever- this film has disco stomps and a brilliant disco soundtrack that strangely provides a brilliant and sinister backdrop to the murders. Another great feature is that of the character of Slick. Just like the bawdy British comedies of the 1970's featured the most unlikely candidates for male eye-candy who somehow get the women, so does this film. Slick thinks hes a modern day babe magnet. I'll leave it up to you to agree or disagree with his self perception.This movie also has one of the most hilarious characters in horror history- look out for Mr Sykes played by Robert Silverman (he would also appear in Scanners and Jason X). Is he the killer or a far too obvious red herring?Prom Night is far too good than a Halloween rip-off slasher movie deserves to be. If Halloween is A+ then Prom Night is B+If you're going to buy this film please look out for the Region 1 Blu ray from Synapse Films. The best transfer and bonus features I've ever seen for ANY Blu ray title. Stunning.

One of the first dominoes to fall in a long line of slasher movies was the hit slasher, Prom Night. The film takes a typical approach when it comes to a slasher's timeline, starts off with a murder, exit frame, que "x" number of years to present time and build the tension to the final scenes. The premise of Prom Night and many of the slasher is taken right from Halloween's playbook. However, the lack of creative in the script is made up in other areas of the film. Jamie Lee Curtis performance is a stellar reminder when she is the top Scream Queen, it was a complete transformation from past characters while maintaining a likable, believable character. The surrounding cast were all unique characters too and didn't bring down the movie with poor performances. It's a slow burn up to the ending but it is eventually worth it, with a pretty good payoff that some may not expect coming.

This is probably the worst horror film I've ever seen. I love Jamie Lee Curtis but this was a mistake in her career.... it's not that she's bad in the film but she's not the star, and everything else in the movie is bad. The acting is extremely over the top cheesy and cliché, the story is pretty weak... they had a chance to make a longer more substantive horror movie, but they resorted to boring cliché material that leaves you feeling like this was a huge missed opportunity. The story centers around 4 kids who were involved in the accidental death of a little girl (Jamie's sister in the film), and now six years later a killer who knows their secret is coming after them... sound kinda familiar? (I know what you did last summer). Watch that one instead of this one if that kind of plot summary sounds interesting to you because it's far better than this disaster. The killing scenes aren't suspenseful or scary, hell none of the scenes in this movie are scary.... just boring and more boring. This is a flop! I recommend you keep looking if you run across this one. 1/10.