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Prom Night (2008)
Like a Big Mac and Fries
Directed By: Nelson McCormick
Starring: Brittany Snow, Scott Porter, Dana Davis, & Idris Elba
MPAA Rating: “PG-13” (for violence and terror, some sexual material, underage drinking, and language)
Starring: Brittany Snow, Scott Porter, Dana Davis, & Idris Elba
MPAA Rating: “PG-13” (for violence and terror, some sexual material, underage drinking, and language)
To go into Prom Night (2008) expecting a serious horror film is like going into your local McDonald’s and ordering a T-bone steak. Firstly, you won’t get what you wanted and secondly, you may find that, as cheap and recycled as it may be, the Big Mac really isn’t that bad. I must be honest for starters and admit that I have never seen the 1980 slasher flick, Prom Night, of which this is supposedly a remake. Reading both plot outlines online, however, I feel that I can safely review this movie without offending the nature of the first film. What this basically means is this: they are nothing alike. In fact, this is really a remake in name only.
Prom night is supposed to be a night cherished for the rest of one’s life. It represents freedom, friendship, and fun before heading off into the responsible world. For Donna (Snow) and her friends, it represents something much more deadly. Three years earlier, Donna’s teacher, Richard Fenton (Johnathon Schaech) became obsessed with her and subsequently murdered her entire family while she watched while hiding underneath a bed. Locked away forever, he was thought to be out of her life for good...until prom night, when he finally escapes his cell (via an air vent) and stalks Donna and her friends to the hotel where their prom is underway. Over the course of the night, the crazed killer hunts down and kills all of her friends, waiting for the right time to come face-to-face with the love of his life for the first time in three years.
With critics ravaging it and horror sites mocking it more fervently than even the most despised Asian-remake, it is very clear where refined cinema scholars and hardcore horror fans stand. I like to consider myself a hardcore horror fan (hey, I like seeing a gallon of blood spray out of some severed neck as much as the next guy), but I also think it’s unfair to expect every genre entry to be tailor-made specifically for us. Some horror films are designed for mainstream audiences. Some of those still suck. Others, however, manage to be fun, harmless films. Prom Night is one of the latter. Here is a movie that lacks almost everything that is required for a good horror film (i.e. a truly frightening villain), but yet it has most of what is needed for a good general release. It rockets through characterization and build-up and begins to kill off teenagers as quickly as it possible can. Once they start dying, they rarely stop.
For a film that sports its PG-13 rating proudly on its sleeve, it would seem that they forgot this when deciding who would die...how they would die, however, is a different story. People are brutally stabbed to death off-screen (we often hear the sounds of the knife slicing into them) and yet, when they are shown, the blood is strangely missing. There are tears in their shirts, a sprinkle of blood here or there, but nothing else. This, I found, to be odd. It didn’t need excessive gore, but if it wanted to show the corpses of those people who were killed, it did need to maintain some form of realism. This will, no doubt, be rectified with an “Unrated” DVD. Overall, Prom Night (2008) is not the next great icon in horror, but it is a cheesy, fun, and entertaining film that resembles something similar to an eighties slasher flick without the boobs and blood.
Prom night is supposed to be a night cherished for the rest of one’s life. It represents freedom, friendship, and fun before heading off into the responsible world. For Donna (Snow) and her friends, it represents something much more deadly. Three years earlier, Donna’s teacher, Richard Fenton (Johnathon Schaech) became obsessed with her and subsequently murdered her entire family while she watched while hiding underneath a bed. Locked away forever, he was thought to be out of her life for good...until prom night, when he finally escapes his cell (via an air vent) and stalks Donna and her friends to the hotel where their prom is underway. Over the course of the night, the crazed killer hunts down and kills all of her friends, waiting for the right time to come face-to-face with the love of his life for the first time in three years.
With critics ravaging it and horror sites mocking it more fervently than even the most despised Asian-remake, it is very clear where refined cinema scholars and hardcore horror fans stand. I like to consider myself a hardcore horror fan (hey, I like seeing a gallon of blood spray out of some severed neck as much as the next guy), but I also think it’s unfair to expect every genre entry to be tailor-made specifically for us. Some horror films are designed for mainstream audiences. Some of those still suck. Others, however, manage to be fun, harmless films. Prom Night is one of the latter. Here is a movie that lacks almost everything that is required for a good horror film (i.e. a truly frightening villain), but yet it has most of what is needed for a good general release. It rockets through characterization and build-up and begins to kill off teenagers as quickly as it possible can. Once they start dying, they rarely stop.
For a film that sports its PG-13 rating proudly on its sleeve, it would seem that they forgot this when deciding who would die...how they would die, however, is a different story. People are brutally stabbed to death off-screen (we often hear the sounds of the knife slicing into them) and yet, when they are shown, the blood is strangely missing. There are tears in their shirts, a sprinkle of blood here or there, but nothing else. This, I found, to be odd. It didn’t need excessive gore, but if it wanted to show the corpses of those people who were killed, it did need to maintain some form of realism. This will, no doubt, be rectified with an “Unrated” DVD. Overall, Prom Night (2008) is not the next great icon in horror, but it is a cheesy, fun, and entertaining film that resembles something similar to an eighties slasher flick without the boobs and blood.
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