Simply A Masterpiece

Load of rubbish!!

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Prom Night IV is a refreshing new story added to the horror franchise. We completely ignore Mary Lou in this one and shift gears to a killer priest named Father Jonas who loves killing teenagers he calls "sluts and whores". It begins in 1957 at Hamilton High, the same night Mary Lou died, with a couple making out in a car. The priest kills the two of them and then sets the car on fire. Other priests discover what he's done and lock him up down in the basement of a Church. 35 years later, Father Jonas is unleashed by a young unsuspecting priest. We also meet a group of teenagers. Meagan the virgin, Mark who is Meagen's boyfriend, Laura the bad girl, and Jeff who is Laura's boyfriend. They decide to ditch prom and go to an old house in the country for the weekend. Of course, Father Jonas has made his way there to hide out. Can the couples survive or will Jonas kill them all for being "unholy" in his eyes.There are a few people killed in gruesome ways in Prom Night 4. There is a also a big chase scene at the end which is fun and exciting. I like the fact they brought the series to it's original sub genre - slasher. Mary Lou was fun for two sequels, but this one is a lot more dark and actually scary just like the first. It also has a real Canadian feel to it like the first one. The old churches we see are in Downtown Toronto. The music done by Paul Zaza is awesome as usual. We get a score used from the first Prom Night as well as My Bloody Valentine, both were scored by Zaza.I know this fourth one gets a lot of flack from critics, but I don't know why. It's a pretty good early 90's slasher, which is rare to find during those years. There are some scares and definitely gore. The acting isn't very good, but I've seen much worse (check out Prom Night 3). The ending left open room for another sequel involving Father Jonas, but unfortunately they never explored it. If you like horror films, in particular slasher movies, check out Prom Night IV. Much better than the third.Also check out the cameo by Brock Simpson! He stared in each of the original Prom films. He played young Nick in the first one, Josh in the second, a cop in the third, and a young priest in this one.7/10

Prom Night 4 (1992) ** (out of 4) Prom Night 4 tries to mix the slasher genre with a bit of The Exorcist, although in the end it seems more like a death threat to the Catholic Church than anything else.The Killer: In 1957 Father Jonas (James Carver) suffers a nervous breakdown and begins speaking to God. He asks God for the strength to kill all the bad kids out there sinning by having sex before marriage. Father Jonas then picks up a knife and heads for Hamilton High School where the prom is being held. He finds two bad kids in the back of a car having sex so he slices their throats. When the Church finds out they lock Father Jonas in the basement where he stays for the next thirty years.The Kids: Let's see if you've ever seen these type of characters in a horror film. Meagan (Nicole de Boer) is a Catholic girl saving herself for marriage but she's starting to think that maybe sex isn't a bad thing after all. Her best friend Laura (Joy Tanner) is a slut who tries to sleep with anyone she can. Meagan's boyfriend is a good guy who's willing to wait until she's ready to have sex. Laura's boyfriend is a dumb jock too stupid to know anything.Thirty years after Father Jonas slaughtered the two sexual teens he escapes from the basement and heads out to finish God's work by killing any teens having sex. Our group of friends go to the prom, have a good time but then lie to their parents about where they're going afterwards and sneaks off to a house to party. Before long they are drinking alcohol and having sex, which means Father Jonas is there to make them pay for their sins.Prom Night 4 is actually a decent little slasher that doesn't try to be anything more than a film full of gore, violence and sex. The one strange thing however is that it seems the director holds a personal grudge against the Catholic Church and at every other corner he is bashing them for something. You've got a conspiracy of hiding the killer who just happened to have been molested as a child. You've got the Cardinal covering up other murders by making them look like suicides. Why all of this is going on in a mindless slasher is beyond me.Outside of the constant bashing we've got a decent little movie, which is better than the first and third films. It's full of your typical cliché characters, which have appeared in hundreds of these types of films. You've got the typical bad acting, bad script and bad direction, which makes some of these films so entertaining. The four characters are all silly enough to keep the viewer interested until their number is brought upon by the killer. The death scenes aren't too original but gore fans should be pleased with them. Overall, Prom Night 4 isn't anything original but it's bad enough to be slightly entertaining.

Out of all the horror movie series I've seen, the Prom Night series takes the cake for maintaining almost no continuity in its films. The first of which was a simple tale of revenge; the following two contained none of the original characters and revolved around the ghost of Mary Lou Maloney: a wicked prom queen who'll stop at nothing to get her crown and the man she desires. While I enjoyed the first of these two films, it's hardly surprising that movie-goers have written them off as laughable and pathetic. Although Prom Night 4 bears no relevance to its predecessors, it gets its scariness from having a very dark villain who pulls no punches whatsoever even if the entire film is loaded with the most predictable horror movie clichés and contains no originality. When we first meet Father Jonas, he's praying fervently about his hatred for sluts and whores. Unsurprisingly, this hatred is what motivates him to kill two high school students making out in a car on the night of their prom. Fast forward 33 years later, Father Jonas isn't in jail but confined to small room beneath his church where his keepers rely on heavy sedatives to keep his evil at bay. Luckily for Father Jonas, a new priest has been assigned to look after him and he escapes by nightfall to return to countryside seminary he remembers from his younger days except now it's a summer home in which four thrill-seeking teenagers are indulging in sex and alcohol. Why not? It's their prom night! It's here that the horror-movie clichés are ubiquitous: for instance, upon their arrival the teens learn that the very secluded house has been burgled, but they choose not to call the police since they're not supposed to be there. The rest of the film features the murders of the two most promiscuous teens, calls to the police that are ineffective, and a lengthy game of cat and mouse in which Father Jonas chases Megan-the most innocent of the teens. Throughout it all, the priest maintains the same dark facial expression and goes about his rampage undeterred. If the effect isn't chilling than it's certainly gruesome, especially since the most undeterred villains in previous horror films couldn't have been human and either wore white masks and shredded coveralls or stalked their victims in their dreams. The fans of the Prom Night series who wrote off the Mary Lou storyline as crap will enjoy this film for being a simple slasher featuring rage-filled murderer, but so will all horror movie fans looking for a creepy and cliché-ridden thrill.

I am a fan of the Prom Night series and have been for quite a while. So it was no surprise to me that I found this flick enjoyable. And like everyone is saying, this film really has no relation to the other Prom Night films. I loved the first one, the second was great fun, too, but the third one was pretty terrible. It went more towards the erotic horror genre. Which I hate. Anyway, POSSIBLE SPOILERS HERE!, the film is about a crazed monk who kills two teens making love in the backseat of a car. He is caught by the rest of the monks and the administer some kind of injection that puts him into a coma for nearly 40 years.Then, a new priest takes over after the old one dies but the idiot doesn't administer the injection. So, Father Jonas, who is creepy as hell, I might add awakens and kills the Priest. He then returns to the old monastary from the beginning of the film and sets his sights on four teenagers that are having their own private prom celebration.So from here, it's scare city. The music is downright scary and haunting, the acting very good. Especially that of Nikki De Boer, the guy who played Father Jonas scared the living crap out of me. So I give this film a 10! Great, scary popcorn fun! Check it out!