by platinum disc
| Average Rating: |
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| Sales Rank: | 50864 (lower is better) |
| Price Used: | $3.96 |
| Shipping: | Free Shipping on most orders over $25* |
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| Director: | Paul Lynch |
| Release Date: | 2004-03-04 |
| Label: | platinum disc |
| UPC: | 096009182397 |
| Binding: | DVD |
| Published By: | platinum disc |
| ASIN: | B000244G9U |
| Category: | DVD |
Actors and Actresses
Editorial Reviews and Product Descriptions
Product Description
Directed by Paul Lynch, this cult horror masterpiece starring Leslie Nielsen and scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis paved the way for future slasher films and inspired such blockbusters as Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. For six long years, Hamilton High School seniors Kelly (Marybeth Rubins), Jude (Joy Thompson), Wendy (Eddie Benton), and Nick (Casey Stevens) have been hiding the truth of what happened to ten-year-old Robin Hammond the day her broken body was discovered near an old abandoned convent. The foursome kept secret how they taunted Robin - backed her into a corner until, frightened, she stood on a window ledge...and fell to her death. Though an accident, the then-twelve-year-olds feared they'd be held responsible and vowed never to tell. But someone else was there that day...watching. And now, that someone is ready to exact murderous revenge - on prom night.
Amazon.com
When it comes to an expressive set of lungs for horror, it's hard to match Jamie Lee Curtis, who set the standard for nonstop screaming in Halloween. She built her reputation as a scream queen in such subsequent outings as The Fog, Terror Train, and this similarly themed and relatively subpar horror outing. A progenitor of I Know What You Did Last Summer, this film focuses on four high school friends on prom night who are being stalked by a masked maniac seeking revenge for a death that occurred six years earlier. Guess who lives to tell the tale? --Marshall Fine
Customer Reviews
1.25 STARS: A slasher dud from the early 1980s. - Reviewed on 2008-02-12
3 customers found this review helpful, 2 did not.
The early 1980s was a truly great time for horror movies, but movies like "Prom Night" show us that even the early 80s produced some duds too. Scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis attempted to follow up on the success of John Carpenter's 1978 classic "Halloween" in "Prom Night" and the result was not good. In this age of remakes of past horror movies, "Prom Night" is a movie that really needs to be remade because the concept behind the movie has potential. It's just a shame that the makers of this movie decided to go with such a lame script.
"Prom Night" is a movie about how a child dies in a terrible accident where some of her childhood playmates were somewhat responsible. The ten (10) year olds responsible for this girl's premature demise make an extraordinarily unlikely pact to keep things a secret, but are they really the only ones that knew about it? Well, life goes on for these kids as well as the brother and sister (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) of the dead little girl. At this point, the movie begins to unravel quickly as it suffers a great deal from needless dialogue and unnecessary scenes which were probably designed to throw the viewer off in his/her assessment of the film. Eventually, and I do mean eventually, people start dying on prom night at the hands of a killer dressed in black, slasher-style no less.
Bad acting is a continuous theme in my reviews of bad horror movies, but, in "Prom Night", the acting was not the problem. Granted, aside from Leslie Nielson and Jamie Lee Curtis, the acting was not anything to write home about, but the acting in "Prom Night" was pretty good for this type of flick, and the execution was fine. I guess it just goes to show you that you need more than good acting to make a good horror movie. With that being said, Jamie Lee Curtis' acting skills seemed to be wasted in this movie in that her character really was not that significant to the story, but I have seen enough of these types of movies to know that the makers of this movie had trouble with the making of this movie or maybe they just did not care enough about it in the first place.
At any rate, the main problem with "Prom Night" is not the acting, the execution or even the concept behind the movie. No, the main problem with "Prom Night" is with the script itself. Basically, "Prom Night" just does not have "it". The creators of this movie tried to be too cute with this whodunnit-styled slasher, and consequently, the movie really suffered from some drawn-out and completely unnecessary scenes from the beginning and middle of the movie where basically nothing happens except for some rather boring and pointless attempts at character development. We all know that character development is necessary within the confines of the story, but something needs to happen that keeps the movie going, and that did not happen in "Prom Night".
In fact, nothing really happens in "Prom Night" until the last twenty (20) minutes or so. It really is not much of an oversimplification to say that one could watch the first ten (10) minutes and then fast forward to the last twenty (20) minutes, and be done with "Prom Night". By the time someone is killed, I was completely frustrated with a lack of action, needless dialogue, and for all intents and purposes a lifeless and bland movie totally devoid of any sense of cinematic structure and completely lacking in style and substance.
Now, anyone that knows me knows that I love slasher films, but "Prom Night" is a pointless movie and a complete dud that for the most part fails to deliver the goods. The kills are nothing to write home about although I did like the decapitation scene in this movie. In fact, this one kill along with the 80s slasher-feel to the movie is about all this movie has to offer. I do not recommend "Prom Night" to anyone.
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Book Subjects
- Adult Language
- Adult Situations
- Brief Nudity
- Canada
- Color
- Drama
- English
- Feature
- Feature Film-drama
- Graphic Violence
- High School Life
- Horror
- Horror / General
- Horror / Sci-Fi / Fantasy
- Lurid
- Menacing
- Movie
- Mystery
- Not For Children
- Serial Killers