Prom Night (1980)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Paul Lynch

Writers:

William Gray (screenplay)
Robert Guza Jr. (story)

Release Date:

18 July 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Tonight, someone has come to the prom alone. Someone who watches in the silent corridors. Someone who waits until no one can help.

Plot:

A masked killer stalks four teens responsible for the accidential death of a child six years earlier at their high school's senior prom.

Plot Keywords:

Prom | High School | Night | Killer | Hiding

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Leslie Nielsen	...	Mr. Hammond
Jamie Lee Curtis	...	Kim
Casey Stevens	...	Nick
Anne-Marie Martin	...	Wendy (as Eddie Benton)
Antoinette Bower	...	Mrs. Hammond
Michael Tough	...	Alex
Robert A. Silverman	...	Sykes (as Robert Silverman)
Pita Oliver	...	Vicki
David Mucci	...	Lou
Jeff Wincott	...	Drew
Mary Beth Rubens	...	Kelly (as Marybeth Rubens)
George Touliatos	...	McBride
Melanie Morse MacQuarrie	...	Henri-Anne
David Gardner	...	Dr. Fairchild
Joy Thompson	...	Jude

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:15 (DVD rating) | Finland:(Banned) (uncut) (1981) (theatrical release) | Finland:K-18 (uncut) (2005) (DVD) | Finland:K-18 (heavily cut) (1983) (video) | France:-12 | Singapore:NC-16 | UK:X (original rating) (1980) | Italy:T (VHS) | Italy:VM18 | Australia:M | Norway:18 (1980) | UK:18 (re-rating) (1987) | USA:R | West Germany:18 (nf) | Iceland:(Banned) | Sweden:(Banned) (original rating) | Sweden:(Banned) (re-rating) | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Don Mills Collegiate, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Quadrant Trust Company

Trivia:

Brock Simpson is the only actor who appeared in all four Prom Night movies.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: At one point in the movie, the killer tears pictures of Jude, Kelly, Nick and Wendy out of a high school yearbook. The pictures are then placed in each individual's locker. After Jude and Kelly discover their pictures, upon holding them up the paper on the back side of each picture is blank (as opposed to what would have appeared on the back of the page in the yearbook).

Quotes:

Young Nick: [after Robin falls out the window and dies] We've got to get somebody, quick.
Young Wendy: Are you crazy? They'll put us in jail. If we tell anybody they'll say it's our fault. Who would believe it was an accident?
Young Nick: But what if...
Young Wendy: Listen to me, we'll go home now and never ever tell anyone. No one but us will ever know. Jude, swear?
Young Jude: I swear.
Young Wendy: Kelly? Kelly!
Young Kelly: I don't want to go to jail!
Young Wendy: Swear?
Young Kelly: I swear.
Young Wendy: Nick? Nick!
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Prom (#3.20)" (1999)

Soundtrack:

Fade to Black

principal by day, disco king at night

I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that I was a huge fan of Prom Night when I watched it too many times on the old vcr back in the early to mid 80's, considering it's basically a Halloween rip-off on the disco dance floor, and our slasher wears a black ski mask instead of the Michael Myers mask(how scary...not)and has an early 80's afro(I won't spoil who the killer is). For some odd reason, Leslie Neilson, who's Jamie Lee Curtis' father and principal of the local high school, simply disappears for the second half of the film, and we're given no explanation as to why this occurs. The mother is mostly silent and adds little to the story, and most of the characters in Prom Night give wooden performances, except for Jamie Lee and her brother, to some extent. That being said, the janitor was funny and creepy, and even gets "mooned" by a local slut; plus Slick was pretty funny cruising around in his black van, picking up some desperate chicks.

Some of the finer moments are the disco dancing, especially by school bully Lou, who gives Tony Manero a run for his money. Most of the climatic scenes near the end of Prom Night revolve around a very long disco tune, which actually isn't half bad for 1980, even though some of the dancing is. I can't help but to smile when we see the shadow of the killer's afro while making prank phone calls to his next victims, and warning them to not attend the school dance or else they'll die.

As I said earlier, I was a big fan of this film, especially when I was a horror freak, but after watching it after many years, I was very disappointed in what basically was a rip-off of better horror films. Finally, for those interested, the transfer to DVD is poor; a white haze is visible throughout the movie with no extras available.