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3 years ago,
Donna watched her family get brutally killed
by her teacher who's become obsessed with her. Now,
Donna has finally patched her life back together and
she's about to head off to her senior prom. Little
does she know that her stalker has escaped from the
mental institution and that he still hasn't forgotten
about her...
The verdict has been almost unanimous for this teen-
targeted slasher remake. Every single review that
I've read for this movie has been negative - especially
from horror sites. Well, I'm usually the first one to
bash remakes to hell but for once I didn't really think
much of the movie that was remade. Let's face it, the
original Prom Night was mediocre at best. It was a
rather forgettable Halloween-remake and it wasn't very
gory to begin with so I understand that they decided to
make it PG-13, especially considering the theme of the
movie. 17-25 year olds simply aren't as interested in
proms as 14 and 15 year olds. I can almost guarantee
that 70% of the people that saw Prom Night opening night
were 15 year old girls looking for a scare. Did they
get one? Well, probably but a hardcore horror fan isn't
going to get much from this. Still, it does NOT deserve
all the negative reviews that it's been getting.
Prom Night is more or less a remake in title only (I'm
not even sure why it's billed as a remake, they could
easily have changed the title to "Bloody Prom" and it
would have been considered a mediocre rip-off instead.
People have been complaining about the acting in this
remake and I don't know why. In my opinion, Brittany
Snow is one of the best teen-actors out there right now.
They could've easily went for Lindsay Lohan instead so
we should be grateful that they decided to cast a good
and respectable actress. You can tell that Ms. Snow is
having a lot of fun on screen and that she's excited to
be working on her first horror flick. She gives us a
stellar performance (sure, she's no Jamie Lee Curtis)
and her character is likeable enough for you to root
for her. Like I said before, I understand why they
decided to go PG-13 with this remake but let's face it,
had the deaths scenes been gorier, this could've been
the slasher movie of the year. I, unlike every other
horror critic, actually found Prom Night to be a
heart-pounding and suspenseful horror flick. The chase
scenes were terrific and really got you pumped up and
there was always something going on to keep you interested.
We horror reviewers often only look on horror movies
from our own perspective but I know as a fact that
I would've loved this movie back when I was 15 years
old or so. It's the perfect teen slasher flick. It's
not meant to be entertaining for the hardcore horror
fans, that wasn't the goal of the movie. Compare this
to awful PG-13 remakes like Shutter and One Missed Call
and you may see what I'm talking about. Those movies
had no class, they were dreadfully boring, they were
generic and they were lousy interpretations of the
movies they were remaking. Prom Night however pays
respect to the original and I didn't mind the fact that
we found out who the killer was right away. This was
actually a quite popular concept back in the 80's and
it makes the killer feel more realistic. Sure, you
COULD slap a tacky mask on him but haven't we seen
enough of those kind of slasher flicks? And I personally
didn't like the original mask anyway (where the killer
was dressed all in black and looked like he was on his
way to rob a bank).
So before you bash this movie to pieces, watch the
original again first and you tell me that this really
is a truly awful remake - I think you'll soon realize
that it's not. If it hadn't been for the fact that it's
so completely gore-less, this could have been a terrific
slasher movie. It brings us back to the late 90's when
slasher flicks were slasher flicks and nothing else.
I don't know about you but I've missed this kind of
slasher movies. Go in with an open mind and remember
that it's aimed at a teen-crowd and you may have as
much fun as I did.
Too little. Way too little.
I really liked the music, it was fresh and made perfect
sense to the movie.
Prom Night is far from as awful as people make it out
to be. It's a teen slasher-flick without gore and had
it been ridiculously gory I'm sure that every single
horror critic out there would have loved it. For once
I'm going to stick up for a remake and recommend it.
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