I had pretty high expectations for the original Prom Night. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say it's great, but it seems to have a decent enough reputation. And it's always fun to check out a slasher film from the late 70s/early 80s, when the template hadn't been totally set yet. Although I guess whether or not it should be considered it a slasher film proper is up for some debate - it really does feel more like a mystery/thriller rather than an out and out slasher flick. But I guess having Jamie Lee Curtis, a masked killer, and being released in the slasher boom will get you that reputation. And it probably didn't hurt at the box office either.
My Synopsis: A group of 12-year olds accidentally kills another kid while mucking about in an abandoned building. Six years later, on Prom Night no less, someone - or something - is taking revenge by killing off those four kids who were involved with the killing six years prior. And anyone else who gets in the way.
Elaborate Genre: Slasher-mystery Disco-thriller
Overall: Not great, but mostly well done and fun enough if you can get past the annoying bits.
First, the bad. I never go into a film *expecting* disco music, but usually I'm not disappointed when it turns up. But man, is there a *lot* of disco in Prom Night. Like, an extended dance number lot. The prom itself feels like more of a presence here than in other school dance movies. If Prom Night is an accurate portrayal, I guess dances in the early 80s were really grating.
Also, the kids in the beginning are just plain annoying. I'm not sure what kind of game they are playing, but it seems pretty fucked up. It's like hide and seek, except when you find someone who is hiding you creep up on them and say "killers gonna get you." Over and over and over again, getting closer and closer and closer. We never see the game through to its conclusion, so I'm not even sure what the point is. Unless you are just supposed to play until some little girl falls out of a window and dies. And one of the kids is such a little shit - she plays the "We can't tell anyone or we'll get in trouble" card so fast you think she planned the whole thing.
But honestly, those are kind of nitpicky things. One legitimate criticism is that it's kind of slow, at least in terms of what you expect from a slasher flick. Other than the kid in the beginning, no one you know gets killed until about an hour in. But I thought it was a nice change of pace, and to me it never really got dull. It helps that most of the characters you spend that hour getting to know are pretty likable. And even the ones that aren't seem kind of realistic. Troublemaker Lou is a little over the top (including a couple of instances of "it's the early 80s so it's kind of okay" attempted sexual assaults), but even he has a kind of idiot charm.
One thing I really liked about Prom Night is that the killer is pretty obviously just a normal guy in all black - he has no superpowers or teleporting abilities or anything like that. He's just a normal guy trying to kill people. To the point where it almost seems easy for people to evade him. It's just kind of nice to see a killer that's not Elite, you know? It also adds a little extra tension to the chase scenes, like maybe people could actually get away from this guy.
Oh, and there's a pretty great car going off of a cliff explosion. Any movie where a car goes over a cliff and explodes before it hits anything will always get points in my book.
It's not an overly gory film by any means. I would say it's the kind of build where you get a "less is more" mentality re: the gore. Most of the film is played pretty realistically, and a lot of the horror action happens offscreen. But when you actually do see something, it has a little extra oomph.
So yeah, I had a good time with Prom Night. It's kind of slow but pretty much works.
I would recommend this film.
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