Apparently Jamie had a hell of a record of being in three horror films that came out in theaters on the same year 1980; The Fog, Terror Train, and today’s review Prom Night. We start off at an abandoned facility where four kids are playing a game of “Killer” (it’s sort of like Hide and Seek). Outside of the facility three siblings show up as they see one of the kids (Nick) hiding outside. One of the three siblings forgot their geography book and heads back to the school leaving only Robin and her twin brother Alex. Robin wants to join the other kids inside to play but Alex tells her that they don’t want her to join them. Robin doesn’t listen so Alex leaves her as she enters the abandoned facility. Robin wonders around the facility until she’s found by Nick who spooks her; afraid that the other kids may have heard her Nick’s starts chanting the “the killer is here” so he won’t get caught. Completely confused of what’s going on Robin runs off but is immediately followed by the other kids as they chant “kill, kill, kill”. They continue to chase her all over the facility until they had her cornered in a room. They close in on her as they continue chanting “kill, kill, kill”; Robin starts backing away from them until unfortunately she backs out of a window falling to her death. The four kids that unintentionally cause her death decided to make a pact to never tell anyone to keep what went on a secret. Oh yeah like that’s not gonna come bite them in the ass later…..SPOILERS! Cut to night time we see Mr. Hammond (played by Leslie Nielsen NOT in a parody film. WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON HERE?!?!) Anyway the cops believe that it was a sexually attack and Robin must’ve resisted; also they may know who did it and have already brought the suspect in. Cut to six years later at Robin’s grave visited by her parents Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, Kim Hammond (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) and Alex Hammond (played by Michael Tough). After Kim and Alex are dropped off at their high school; we cut to an unseen figure making phone calls to three of the four kids from six years earlier. The first to get the call is Jude Cunningham (played by Joy Thompson), Kelly Lynch (played by Mary Beth Rubens) and Nick McBride (played by Casey Stevens) who leaves his home without answering the phone. Cut to Wendy Richards’ (played by Anne-Marie Martin) place where she gets a call from the mysterious caller but quickly hangs up and heads to school. Later we cut to Kim at the auditorium where the prom will be taken place; she starts dancing on the empty dance floor until she’s approached by Wendy who is a rather complete bitch towards Kim. Apparently Wendy and Nick had a relationship but Nick called it off and has started flirting with Kim. Later at the cafeteria Kim is hanging with her friends until she’s being accosted by Lou Farmer (played by David Mucci). Alex comes in and fends off Lou but is attacked by Lou’s friends; the fight continues until a faculty member stops the fight and sends Lou and Alex to the principle Mr. Hammond. So of course Mr. (Frank Drebin) Hammond doesn’t take kindly to douchebags in his high school and suspends Lou from the school. Outside of the school Kim and Nick are walking about reminiscing about Robin since it is the anniversary of her death. Nick starts thinking back to the day of Robin’s death telling Kim how sorry he is about the event. Nick was about to tell her everything breaking the secret pact he and the others made but got interrupted by the school bell having Kim to leave for class. And just when you thought the four teens were all douchebags one of them tries to spill the beans on the whole thing as a way of repentance. Cut to Wendy and Lou hanging around apparently planning some payback on the school; $50 this backfires and these two end up dead.
While Kim and Nick are rehearsing for the prom king and queen precession; Wendy, Jude, and Kelly have found cut-outs of their yearbook portrait in their lookers. Well at least it’s not as vague and stupid as the “I know what you did last summer” note. Its prom night and everyone has a date and are off for a good time; including the killer. Cut to the school auditorium with the prom already started; everyone’s having fun on the dance floor even Frank Drebin. Hey he’s the principle he can do whatever he wants. Anyway the dance floor starts to clear as Kim and Nick have a couple’s dance while the “Prom Night” song is playing in the background. Cut to Kelly and a teen named Drew (played by Jeff Wincott) making out in a locker room; Drew tries to take her dress off to have sex but she keeps refusing. So Drew goes fuck it and leaves her there; oh wait let me get my tricorder again………..as I thought a douchebag. Kelly puts her dress back on but she’s unaware that the killer is sneaking up behind her and slits her throat with a mirror shard. Cut to a van in the woods where Jude a teen named Slick (played by Sheldon Rybowski) just finishing having sex. Afterwards they start smoking some joints as the killer shows up and kill Jude; Slick gets pissed off, punches the killer and drives off. The killer makes a few attempts to climb in the van and kill Slick but keeps getting thrown out. The killer makes one last attempt this time he makes Slick drive off a cliff and the van explodes on impact. Back at the school Wendy is in the restroom fixing her make up until she’s attacked by the killer now wielding an ax. Wendy dodges the killer’s attack and runs out of the restroom while the killer gives chase. Wendy tries to getaway but keeps running into locked doors; she heads to a school garage and hides in a car but the killer finds her. She runs off again back to the school halls and hides in a storage room. So far Wendy’s safe until she finds the body of Kelly; she freaks out and runs out of the storage room where the killer is right outside and kills her.
Back at the auditorium Kim and Nick are getting ready for the king and queen precession but little do they know that Lou and his cronies are out to ruin the precession. Lou and crony #1 knocked out Nick then tied and gagged him while crony #2 hides in the shadows behind Kim. Lou takes Nick’s place as the killer shows up not knowingly aware that it’s not Nick. As the precession begins the killer creeps up behind Lou and like Connor Macleod chops the guy’s head clean off. The dismembered head rolls out on the dance floor causing the prom-goers to panic and run immediately out of the auditorium. Kim hears all the commotion and goes off to find Nick tied and gagged; after she unties him the two try to leave the auditorium but are blocked off by the killer. The killer lunges at Nick but he tries to fend off the killer; Kim tries to fight him off but the killer keeps shrugging her off. Nick still struggles with the killer to the point that he throws the ax away from him; Nick and the killer continue to struggle while Kim goes to get the ax. She stands ready for an opening until she gives a good whack on the killer’s head with the ax. This is why Jamie Lee Curtis is so amazing in these horror films she always portrays those kinds of characters who have the means of defending herself against all odds. Anyway the killer is stunned and wounded after the possibly lethal blow to the head. Kim and the killer make eye contact as she gets a sense of familiarity as if she knows him while the killer looks at her as if appeared to be shocked. The killer runs away while Kim and Nick follow him; the killer makes it outside of the school but starts stumbling and then falls to the ground. Kim runs to the killer removing his mask to reveal to be her own brother Alex. Cut to a flashback after Robin fell to her death Alex soon appears and sees her dead body; apparently through all these years he blames Nick and the others for Robin’s death and sworn revenge. The film ends with Alex dying in Kim’s arms as she cries; devastated that her brother is now dead and was the killer. And quite possibly knows that Nick and the others were responsible for Robin’s death the whole time.
My Final Verdict: Out of most horror films Jamie has starred in, Prom Night has to be the only one where her character is not the main victim. Yeah she is the leading protagonist but it’s like her character is put in a circumstance unknown to her instead of being the killer’s main target. Mainly because the killer is her own brother; now there are about three things I was having problems with. They’re not that big of a deal but are worth mentioning. The first two is with the sub-plots a rapist mentioned earlier in the film and a suspicious school janitor Sykes (played by Robert A Silverman NOT in a Cronenberg film, AGAIN WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON HERE?!?!). Anyway both sub-plots are brought up in the film many times but unfortunately have ZERO pay off or don’t add up to the main plot. So I’ve decided not to mention them in the review since both sub-plots are just false tensions in the end. The third problem is how this film takes a bit too long to get to the revenge sub-plot. We see the killer making phone calls to the four teens but barely follow upon it with the four teens being paranoid or scared over these weird calls. The point that the film gets really good is at the 48 minute mark where everything is set up for the inevitable revenge sub-plot. At least in Terror Train the whole killing starts thirteen minutes in while there were other things going on in between. I’m not saying this film is bad it’s just slow at getting the plot going while distracting us with rather unnecessary sub-plots that sadly led to nowhere. Now apparently there were sequels that I honestly wasn’t aware of until now but after already surviving reviewing the Scanners sequels and spin-offs. I’m honestly not in the mood to review the possibly crappy sequels so soon. And not to mention there’s a 2008 remake; whether if I review it or not depends on this remake doesn’t piss me off with remake stupidity.
OK folks we’ve looked through the aftermath of Jamie’s popularity now we’re diving into the film that started her popularity that would last for decades to come. Next week it’s Halloween; stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment