Prom Night (1980)

• Year: 1980
• Released: 18 Jul 1980
• Country: Canada
• Adwords: 2 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081383/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Prom_Night
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/prom-night
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
• Runtime: 92 min
• Writer: William Gray, Robert Guza Jr.
• Director: Paul Lynch
• Cast: Leslie Nielsen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Stevens
• Keywords: murder, revenge, serial killer, high school, slasher,

	5.3/10
	45/100
	7% – Critics
	38% – Audience

Prom Night Storyline

Six years ago, when young Robin Hammond crashed through a broken window, her playmates vowed to keep the accident a secret. They promised that no one would ever know, but someone already does. Now after years of keeping the secret, Robin’s sister Kim is about to be crowned prom queen, but a chilling event undermines her party plans. Revenge for the six-year-old murder is around the corner as the unknown observer turns maniacal killer stalking the high school halls. Kim’s friends are disappearing and the dark empty halls are filling with blood. This was the senior prom where some were crowned and others were losing their heads.

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Prom Night Movie Reviews

Predictable but watchable slasher

Pretty much your typical slasher film, this is one that was clichéd when it came out, and that was twenty years ago! Strange to see how films like I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER are still using the same clichés even now, perhaps in twenty years time we’ll be watching yet more blonde girls getting stalked through corridors by mad people…

Still, as an example of its type, you could do a lot worse, and at least this presents a nice variety of clichés for us to enjoy, such as (deep breath): an escaped lunatic who kidnapped a nurse, cf. HALLOWEEN; some threatening phone calls, cf. BLACK Christmas; a weird cleaner as a main suspect; teenagers having sex and then getting killed, cf. just about any slasher film in existence! Although filmed on a low budget in Canada, the film succeeds by building up lots of red herrings and potential murderers in the cast, before bumping off half a dozen teens in the last third (although it’s never explained why the fat guy in the van gets murdered when he had nothing to do with the original accident).

The cast is mainly populated by nobodies, headlined by two stars; one up-and-coming girl, one middle-aged actor going through a lean patch in his career; that is, Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen. Curtis was typed as a screaming heroine at this time, having appeared in HALLOWEEN, TERROR TRAIN, and THE FOG, to name but three, and here she performs perfectly adequately – apart from her embarrassing moves on the disco floor, which should have been consigned to cutting room history! It’s difficult to watch Nielsen acting seriously – you expect him to start blowing things up accidentally or killing people in a comic fashion. He looks as if he doesn’t want to be in this film, and he actually isn’t…near the end, he suddenly disappears, never to be heard of again! Where did Nielsen go? One minute he’s dancing, the next…people are looking for him but to no avail! Was this some secret hint that there was actually a conspiracy involved that night – and maybe Nielsen was a second murderer? Or maybe the budget ran low and the producers had to quickly ditch the most expensive star.

For a slasher film, there are surprisingly few deaths, and most of the film’s running time is padded out with endless conversions about the prom, some low lifes at the school fighting, drugs, sex, flashing, and girls putting make up on. Not to mention some obvious spooky scenes, like a window smashing suddenly and nobody being there. When the deaths do come, they’re pretty simplistic and disappointing – some blood, throat slashings, nothing spectacular apart from a flying severed rubber head moment at the end of the film (pretty funny, but not exactly worth waiting for). The killer dresses entirely in black and wears a balaclava; personally he reminded me more of a ninja than a murderer.

PROM NIGHT was a moderate success, spawning three unrelated sequels to date. There are a few effective stalk and slash moments in the film to enjoy, but not really much horror content. If you want the blueprints of the genre then it’s probably a good idea to go with the two most popular slasher films which were responsible for all of these imitations: HALLOWEEN and Friday the 13th (themselves influenced by many other pictures, I know). Or even something gory like THE BURNING. This film falls about the middle of the scale of slasher film quality.

weak B-movie horror

Little kids play hide-and-seek in an abandoned convent and cause the death of little Robin Hammond. Six years later, Kelly Lynch, Jude Cunningham, Wendy Richards and Nick McBride are in Alexander Hamilton Senior High School hiding the secret of that day. Mr. Hammond (Leslie Nielsen) principal of the school, his wife and their kids Kim (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Alex still mourn the lost. Some creep is calling the four kids and threatening their prom night. Nick is going with Kim to the prom. Meanwhile the police suspects sex offender Leonard Merch killed Robin and hounded him to a fiery crash. He turned catatonic but has just escaped from the mental hospital.

This is a Canadian B-movie horror. It’s not completely horrible as some other low budget productions of that genre. However one would be kidding to claim this to be a good movie. It does have Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen. That’s the good part but everybody else is at least a step down. The police part is a waste of time. Overall, there isn’t anything interesting. The other kids aren’t compelling. The dialog is really clunky at times. It may be only my problem but I suffered through some bad lighting. There are whole sections of near total darkness. The disco is pretty cheesy. This is a generally inferior product.

Mr. Sykes! This is just for you!

This is the horror classic that had it all. It paved the way for future horror films as well as horror parodies, particularly “Student Bodies.” The film starts off with a childhood incident which later relates into killings. This film seems to have iit all: creepy janitor suspect; former killer/suspect on the loose; disco ball, creepy dial phone with no caller ID; an axe; a killer who is omnipresent; a drive-in, a shower scene, bad sound track, bad fonts, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

It is a campy horror by today’s standards, but a classic in its time.

F-bomb, butt nudity, near sex.