Title: Prom Night (1980)
Runtime: 89 minutes
Director: Paul Lynch
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How in the world was Prom Night (2008) a remake of this film? They are entirely different. In fact, the only similarity between the films – that I can see – is that they both take place on the night of prom.
In Prom Night, there is a masked maniac on the loose, seeking revenge on a group of high school teenager (on their prom night, of course) for a tragic event that happened when the group was much younger.
That aside, this movie is incredibly average. It takes a terribly long time to get to the first slasher killing, and everything up to that point is dull. Wendy (played by Anne-Marie Martin) is wonderful, though, and easily steals the spotlight from Jamie Lee Curtis. The underuse of Leslie Nielsen is damn near criminal. This is also the tamest slasher film I’ve ever seen in terms of gore. There is one bloody moment, and it happens so fast that it’s barely worth the effort.
Oh, and the amount of times the boom mic is visible is laughable. It completely takes the viewer out of the story, and it happens about 4-5 times in the opening 30 minutes alone.
This is an instance where the remake completely blows the original out of the water.
As an aside, I own this movie thanks to the $5 bin at Walmart, and the video quality is the absolute worst I have ever seen on DVD (it’s actually a DVD-R for those keeping score). Avoid that version of the film like the plague.
Branden has been a film fan since he was young, roaming the halls of Blockbuster Video, trying to find the grossest, scariest looking VHS covers to rent and watch alone in the basement. It wasn’t until recently, though, that Branden started seeking out the classics of cinema, and began to develop his true passion for the art form. Branden approaches each film with the unique perspective of having studied the art from the inside, having both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in acting. He has been a film critic since 2010, and has previously written for Inside Pulse Movies, We Love Cult, and Diehard Gamefan. His biggest achievement as a film critic, to date, has been founding Cinefessions and turning it from a personal blog to a true film website, housing hundreds of film and television reviews, and dozens of podcasts.
