Before we begin, i have to mention how surprised i was to see Leslie Nielsen as this movies school principal. this connects to nothing i will be talking about whatsoever, just had to mention it. so that's cool...
This slasher follows a relentless killer who is out to avenge the death of a young girl who died after a children's game in an abandoned building. Now high-school students, the guilt-ridden kids have kept their involvement a secret, but when they start being murdered, one by one, it's clear that someone knows the truth. Also coping with the past are members of the dead girl's family, most notably her prom-queen sister, Kim Hammond.
that plot description sounds a lot like the plot of I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, which fits in this movie that feels like it was pieced together from every horror film both before and after it. the Prom night setting and the old expelled student come back to raise hell on prom night shtick screams of CARRIE white, the dozens of red herring characters feel very SCREAM, the police are after an escaped maniac just like HALLOWEEN, the killers phone calls to his soon to be victims is straight up BLACK CHRISTMAS, And of course you cant see sexy teens being picked off one by one without thinking of the FRIDAY THE 13TH series. of course i spent the whole movie making similar connections to the wonderous world of horror movies, and if you have seen as many horror movies as i have those connections make this movie a fun as hell watch. Despite the seemingly copy and paste nature of the plot, this movie certainly has its moments of originality that help elevate it above the rest.
a standard horror movie throat slit make double disturbing by slow motion, a would be van double kill that turns into a crazy action sequence with equally crazy backing music, Leslie Nielsen's old man dancing, One of Cronenberg's boys Robert A. Silverman being wonderfully creepy, the most unthreatening killer in the best way possible, and plenty of wonderful little moments that really give this movie a soul. a Canadian soul to boot, since Prom Night was filmed over twenty-four days in Toronto. Not only that, but the director himself is almost as interesting as this movie itself. Paul Lynch came to Canada in 1960. He left school to become a cartoonist for the Toronto Star and then served as a photographer for a number of small-town newspapers. This led to work in film, including a 90-minute documentary on Penthouse magazine commissioned by its publisher, Bob Guccione. His first feature film was The Hard Part Begins. This was followed by the 1980 box-office hit (surprisingly) Prom Night. Lynch has only made movies periodically, pursuing instead a career directing for American television.
Canadians or not, there is a reason people are still talking about this movie 40+ years later.
8/10
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