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Prom Night (1980)


Cast:

Leslie "Frank Drebin!!!" Nielsen is Mr. Hammond
Jamie Lee "Sorry boys, wait until Trading Places..." Curtis is Kim Hammond
Casey Stevens is Nick McBride
Anne-Marie Martin is Wendy Richards
Antoinette Bower is Mrs. 'Vi' Hammond
Michael Tough is Alex Hammond


What the box says:

Prom Night is a teenage thriller set in abig city high school. Kim (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Nick (Casey Stevens) will be crowned Queen and King of the Prom and the excitement of this day is evident. But a number of sub-plots threaten to disrupt the celebrations of the evening and eventually turn it into a night of terror.


Plot:

Nick, Wendy, June, and Kelly are playing in an abandoned school. Freaky laughing ensues. A twisted version of hide and see crossed with tag is being played. Whoever is it is the �Killer� and must chant how the �Killer will kill you� when the victim is tagged and becomes a Killer, too. This is zombie, killer tag.

Anyways, Alex, Kim, and Robin are walking home from school. Kim has to run back to school to get a book. Robin wants to join in the game. Alex keeps heading home. Robin enters the creepy building to play the game.

Wendy is the killer and gets one of the girls.

Robin finds Nick. He manages to distract Wendy with Robin who is being chased by all of the kids. They circle Robin and keep chanting about killing. Robin is freaked out by this and starts begging and backing away. She accidentally falls out a window.

Nick wants to go for help. Wendy is convinced they�ll go to jail. Everyone swears to keep this a secret and run to their homes. A shadow is over the broken body of Robin.

Later, Principal Hammond is at the school as more cops arrive. Robin, his daughter, is taken away.

6 years later, at the cemetery, Mom, Leslie Nielsen, Alex and Kim lay flowers on Robin�s grave.

Leslie drives his kids to school. Kim is sure that the janitor is pervert. Let's call him Red Herring.


Here's a little something for the ladies...

June, one of the girls from the game 6 years ago, gets a phone call. We only see the caller�s hands. She leaves to go to school. A nerd, Seymour Crane, with a van offers to take her to school.

Kelly, another of the girls, gets a call. Her boyfriend isn�t worried about it when told.

Cop, Nick�s dad, and Nick leave their house. He doesn�t get his call. Some background information tells us that Nick has broken up with Wendy. He�s going to the Prom with Kim.

Apparently, a known sex offender, Leonard Marsh, was around the school the day Robin was killed. The police chased him. A car chase and wreck left him hideously scarred. Nick�s dad learns that Leonard escaped the asylum and is loose. The police find the body of the nurse Marsh killed.

Wendy gets her call. Letting it ring a few times, she hangs up after hearing the message. By the way, Cartman would consider Wendy to be a super-mega-King-Kamekameyah beeyotch.

At the high school, teenage shenanigans ensue.

Kim meets with her friends: June and Kelly. The sleazy wannabee Vinnie Barbarino is hitting on them. In the distance, Kim spots Wendy trying to pick up Nick again.

Back at the deserted school, the cops find the nurse�s body. A psychiatrist tries explaining how Leonard wants revenge. The cops decide to keep it quite to not panic the town.

Kim checks out the disco floor for the Prom. Spastic Jamie Lee Curtis ensues as boogieing ensues. Wendy pops up and swears to get Nick back.

A pair of hands is ripping pictures out of the yearbook.

In the cafeteria, Kim and her friends arrive. A ski-masked clad Lou tries to force Kim to kiss him when Alex jumps to the rescue. If not for Lou�s crew, Alex would have been doing pretty well. Finally, some teachers arrive to stop the fight.

Lou and Alex are taken to Principal Leslie Nielsen�s office.

Wendy still craves Nick.

In the office, Leslie permanently expels Lou after hearing the story. Alex is let off without even a warning. The nurse�s rusty Volkswagen drives by the school.

Cops ponder what Leonard is planning.

At the beach, Nick and Kim are taking a walk. Kim mentions that has been 6 years to the day since Robin died. Nick wants to admit his part in her death but can�t get it out.

Wendy and Lou pull into a drive-in. She wants Lou�s help in her plan to humiliate Kim and the school.

Short skirt tennis practice with Jamie Lee Curtis ensues.

Us men are subjected to a shower scene with very little flesh ensues. A towel clad Kim spots that Wendy�s locker has a torn out yearbook picture in it. Kim and June hear a mirror shatter but don�t spot who did it. However, a large shard is missing.

Kim spots Red Herring, the janitor.


Just wait for Trading Places and True Lies

Prom decorating ensues as Kim and Nick practice the royalty procession. Wendy and Lou spy on everything.

Red Herring cleans up the broken mirror.

Later, Kim is in the hallway at the school and hears a noise. Would it be a surprise to say she was creeped out by it?

June finds the torn out yearbook picture in her locker as does Kelly.

The police keep searching for the Volkswagen.

Wendy has Lou prepare for the Prom.

Kim is getting ready for the Prom. Her mother is distracted and a few degrees out of synch with reality. Mom and Leslie Nielsen drive to the Prom. Nick arrives to take her to the Prom.

Wendy is waiting for Lou to pick her up. Lou�s crew is in the car, too.

We see the yearbook and the phone used earlier.

Disco prom and spastic monkey dancing ensues.

Kim and Nick meet June and the tragically nerdy Seymour.

Nick�s dad, the cop, is outside the prom watching and waiting.

Ever want to see Frank Drebin dance with Jamie Lee Curtis? This is your only chance.


Disco Apocalypse 2: the Return of the Quickening

Wendy arrives with the surly thuggish Lou and his t-shirt tuxedo clad crew. Yes, the t-shirts which look like tuxedo shirts.

Kim and Nick break into a dance number which was cut out of Saturday Night Fever. Everyone watches in amazement or utter shock. Eventually, the twitching is contagious as others hit the dance floor.

Nick�s Dad is being briefed.

Kim, June, and Kelly are touching up their makeup.

Wendy and Lou are dancing until she leaves him.

A couple is going at it like immoral wombats. Kelly wants to stop before going too far. It is so dark you can�t see what is going on at all. She is left alone by her date. Fumbling with her dress, Kelly is killed. Her throat is slit by a piece of mirror.

Nick�s dad still has no word of Leonard Marsh.

Making love in a Chevy van ensues. I couldn�t pass up such a bad 70s song moment. June and Seymour have bounced uglies. If Seymour were any nerdier, he�d be beaten by Screech from Saved by the Bell or by Horshack from Welcome Back Cotter. He goes to answer the call of nature. June wants to ride the wild Seymour overlooking the beach. They head out but go back to the van. The killer is outside. The mellow June and Seymour partake of the reefer. A ski-masked clad guy opens the van�s door and kills June. Seymour starts driving the van around in circles trying to fight off the killer. The van heads off the cliff and explodes before hitting the bottom of the cliff.

More prom disco ensues. Wendy and Lou are arguing. She doesn�t want anyone to get hurt.

In the ladies� room, Wendy is fixing up her makeup when the lights go out. She is being chased by an axe-wielding madman. Up to the second floor and through a science classroom, Wendy hides. A cheap scare alerts the Axey, the wonder killer. Wendy is still trying to escape. She hides in a car in the school garage. The deliberately slow kill walk ensues. He breaks the car windshield out. Wendy escapes again as Axey keeps getting closer. Wendy spots the other victims and is finally killed.

Nick�s dad is told that Leonard Marsh was caught 50 miles away. So who could the killer be?

At the Prom, Leslie Nielsen seems to have disappeared. It is time for the royalty procession.

Lou is about to start the plan to take care of Kim.

Kim and Nick are backstage. They head to their respective spots. Lou�s goons knock out Nick. Lou gets dressed as Nick. We see Axey approaching.

Discoing continues until the procession begins.

Axey lops off Lou�s head which rolls down the ramp as the reasonable teenagers freak out and run off. Kim finds Nick. Strobe lights and disco music ensues as Axey goes after Nick.

Kim even tries to stop Axey who loses his axe. Greco-Roman wrestling on the disco floor ensues. She manages to get the axe. Axey gets a couple licks from his own axe and runs away.

The police arrive. The cops have their guns drawn. Kim cradles the Axey as she unmasks him. The movie flashbacks to 6 years ago, Alex is at the school and sees Robin fall from the window, and the kids run off.


What I say:

The late 70s and early 80s saw a number of horror movies trying to cash in on the Halloween bandwagon. Until Friday the 13th came out, horror movies became more generic as the true slasher flick was born. Although Prom Night was released after Friday the 13th, it is more like Halloween including having Jamie Lee Curtis as the star and several other attempts at stealing from John Carpenter rather than try to imitate the blooming summer camp stalker type of movie.

This has to be the first horror movie franchise that has absolutely nothing to do with the other movies. Friday the 13th dealt with the Vorhees particularly Jason except the one where the ambulance driver was the killer. Nightmare on Elm Street always dealt with Freddy Kreuger. Halloween 3: Season of the Witch was still a couple of years off. The other Prom Night movies have absolutely nothing to do with this movie. The second was about a vengeful ghost possessing a girl years after her death. The third and fourth, I don't remember at all.

Jamie Lee Curtis isn't the shy and awkward Laurie Strode from Halloween in this movie. In fact, her awkwardness helped make her one of the most memorable horror heroines. She may abide by the unwritten "horror laws". You can tell she is too old to play a teenager especially in high school in Prom Night. Kim is an awfully bland character for the most part. Imagine Laurie Strode as popular, that is practically the entire character development she is given. For one thing, how exactly is she the most popular girl to be elected Prom Queen?

I'm sure a lot of people can't believe that at one time Leslie Nielsen was considered a serious actor. Nielsen is known for the Naked Gun movies among with a lot of other similar goof ball roles like his Naked Space. He played in the original version of Ransom with Glenn Ford. It was remade with Mel Gibson before the man went more insane than Mad Max on a vengeance spree. In fact, Leslie Nielsen only has a glorified cameo than an actual role in Prom Night.

The whodunit element of the movie isn't that hard to decipher. Several of the characters are obviously red herrings like the janitor. The people who got the phone calls are definitely not the killers. Kim's obviously distraught mother. However, the largest red herring is the escaped mental patient. We have an implied Michael Meyers in this movie. Why implied? He is never seen but drives the car by the high school once. In fact, he has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. If removed, it would make the police even more useless to this movie. They never find any of the bodies until at the end of the movie. I think the police only know something is wrong when 50 teenagers call about a decapitation at the Prom.

The pacing seems awfully disjointed for this movie. Modern horror movies want to keep children from danger. I think today's sensiblities make the first few minutes, and Robin's death even more shocking. The first few minutes really set a creepy mode that died. We're given an hour of characterization. The killer doesn't strike until an hour into the movie. They try to cram all the shock into the final 30 minutes. Really most of the first hour is just red-herrings to throw you off the trail of who the killer is. In fact, this has to be one of the lowest body count horror movies of the 80s.

I've got 2 really big complaints about the movie. One is trying to keep track of everyone in this movie. In fact, it hard to keep track of who is who. Kim's friends: June and Kelly, seem virtually interchangable. Would it have been so hard to make them a little more differentiable? The other is the lighting in some scenes are so dark you can't see what's going on especially during the kills.

I've complained about some of the charaters. Something else that struck me as funny, it is a good thing. It is almost unbelievable to have siblings that actually like each other in movies. Normally, after some traumatic incident they may bond and not fight like they did before. Most movies would rather show that siblings truly despise each other.

Why didn't Alex ever tell anyone about the kids playing at the old school? What set him off after 6 years? There was no reason unless Alex couldn't stand the fact his sister was going to date one of the group that inadvertently killed his twin sister. Was he so warped as to start killing them because of the 6th anniversary of Robin's death? Or was it due to Kim going with one of the killers? Alex could have thought of Kim being in some sort of danger around most of the people responsible for the Robin's death.

I've done a few Blaxsploitation movies. Several other review sites have visited other such genres as nunsploitation, hicksploitation, and Canuxspolitation. What? You've not heard of Canuxsploitation. Settle back my ten of fans and let me weave you story. In Canada, in the early 80s, any movie would get some partial funding by the government just for filming with a certain percentage of Canadian actors. That explains Leslie Nielsen in this movie.

The killer doesn't strike until an hour into the movie. They try to cram all the suspense into 30 minutes after an hour of characterization. In fact, this has to be one of the lowest body count horror movies of the 80s. This had to be one of the last movies trying to go on the John Carpenter Halloween bandwagon look at how Michael Meyers has continually been run so far into the ground he should hit oil. Friday the 13th was able to really define, the true 80s slasher genre.

Prom Night comes across like a Brundel telepod version of Carrie and Halloween. The guys are hardly mentioned at all to give it that Carrie matriarchal society feel. Wendy has possibly one of the dumbest goofs in movies to help her with her prank. I'm not sure what the prank was to be with Lou dressed as Nick for the Royal procession. Was he going to try anything like in the cafeteria? Wendy kept mentioning how she didn't want anyone hurt as if Lou had a far moresinister idea in mind. How would whatever the prank would have been gotten Nick back to reconcile with Wendy? Ok, I'm thinking far too much about the plot, aren't I?

An appreciation of movies shows how truly derivative some movies are. If they were any more derivative, they'd be in a Calculus book. Don't you love math humor? I was surprised about how much I Know What You Did Last Summer stole from this movie. Accidental death, group of friends swearing to keep it a secret, killer starts haunting them some time later. The Wendy chase was pretty close to Sarah Michelle Gellar's stalking in I Know What You Did Last Summer. People thought Kevin Williams was a creative writer for such a thing. Well, everyone saw how craptacular and sucktastic I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.

There is absolutely no remorse from June, Kelly, and Wendy about Robin's death. It could be that June and Kelly were punishing themselves by being friends with Kim. However, neither of them seem to feel bad. Nick is about to blurt out "sorry for accidentally killing your little sister years ago" for most of the movie. We're supposed to be empathize with him for such a conflict. Date Jamie Lee Curtis or admit to manslaughter? That is quite a conundrum.



2 1/2 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

"The killer is coming."
"Give you someone to do your equations with."
"June, can you come out and play?"
"An obscene call and not very obscene."
"For a guy so fast on the disco floor, you are the slowest."
"Kiss the king?"
"You're my sister. I'll leer."
"Principal by day, disco king by night."


Morals of the Story

Deserted schools are easy for kids to sneak into to play.
Prom dates are decided at the very last minute.
High school cafeterias don't have any teacher supervision.
Daisy Duke shorts are popular in Canada.
Mooning school janitors is very inappropriate.
A hairbrush is a weapon.
Hollowed out textbooks are a great place to hide drugs.
Vans explode in midair before crashing against the bottom of the cliff.




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