PROM NIGHT (1980)
Directed by Paul Lynch
Platinum DVD
Reviewed 02.15.07
Review by Dan Budnik

THE FILM
When I think about my Junior and Senior Proms, there is one strong memory from each event that defines the evenings in my mind.

Junior Prom: A young lady I had known since I was a little kid took pity on me and went with me. She had a boyfriend and pictures of him filled up the living room as I sat waiting for her to come down the steps in her dress so it really was “Pity” in the epic Greek sense of the word. We went to some sort of fancy, expensive restaurant by a body of water. I remember saving up my cash and saving up my cash for weeks. She ordered some sort of veal meal that cost $23.95. At the end of the meal, I looked over at her, smiled and asked how it was. She said it was fine. However, there was a large slice of meat still sitting on her plate. I said, “You know that cost $23.95. That's about $4.53 there on your plate. If you're not going to eat it..." It was very good.

Senior Ball: I took my girlfriend. We had been going out for six months and, I didn't know this at the time, she had begun to get very tired of me. The DJ played a little AC/DC and my friends and I went out and danced. This was the end of our time together. Four years of great adventures and more laughs than I could ever count were ending. We finished dancing and sat down. My girlfriend was crying. She hadn't danced. She felt left out because she couldn't dance like we could. The thing was: we weren't dancing. We were joyously leaping around like fools. There was no rhyme or reason. It was the last big bash and we were just glad to be alive and leaping feverishly like morons. She didn't understand. She kept crying. I stopped dancing.

And then, the phone calls started coming. A raspy voice that knew what we had done six years ago. How we had accidentally killed the Principal's youngest child and left her body by the old, abandoned house at the South East edge of town. And, we got the distinct feeling that someone was watching us and waiting...for what? And, I saw Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen disco dance with no trace of irony. And, someone started killing my friend as loud, repetitive disco tunes played and played. And, frankly, my prom night became a shambles.

Prom Night was made at the same time as Friday the 13th and released three months after it. So, it doesn't have the body count or gore of Jason's debut. Prom Night follows the lead of Halloween. But, really, it just picks an important date, sets up a revenge plot and kills a few people.

I don't know what it says about me when I had thought that “Slick,” the portly-but-smooth guy with the make-out van, had been at my prom. (He's in the movie.) I'm even more confused by the fact that the scene with the jock throwing up all over himself and his beautiful cheerleader girlfriend in the parking lot turned out to be from my Prom and not this movie. How come the embarrassing things turned out to be real?

Prom Night is a well-made revenge film that everyone says is a slasher (just like Night School is more of a cop-led mystery). It might look like an early-80's slasher good time but it feels and is structured more like something pre-Halloween. And, that's not bad. But, as a slasher, it's not a favorite of mine. As a pre-slasher, it's not a favorite of mine either. It was there at the birth of the form and it straddles the fence.

The Platinum DVD back cover blurb sums it up startlingly well: "Prom Night is a teenage thriller set in a big city high school. Kim (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Nick (Casey Stevens) will be crowned Queen and King of the Prom and the excitement of this day is evident. But a number of sub-plots threaten to disrupt the celebrations of the evening and eventually turn it into a night of horror."

Everything (with the possible exception of "big city") fits the movie and what it is and does perfectly.

AUDIO AND VIDEO
Well, the DVD looks like the old MCA VHS to me. Full-screen, slightly hazy and muffled. This means it looks exactly like you always remembered it looking. Yes, we're well aware of Anchor Bay's expensive, out of print widescreen DVD of Prom Night. Battles must be chosen wisely. I don't even own Lunch Meat yet.

EXTRAS
Platinum comes through with a series of Interactive Menus and Chapter Selections. Set aside an evening.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Personally, Prom Night works best if I treat it like my Prom: a series of memories that get better or worse depending upon my mood. Best kept at a bit of a distance. Critically, it's like The Rolling Stones' album "Aftermath." That album was made right before the Stones hit their creative peak, so there are elements of the approaching storm and elements of what came before. “Aftermath” has some awesome songs, but is repetitive, and goes on far too long. Just like Prom Night. I still prefer Final Exam.

Jamie, let's dance.


He's onto something good


Get me Rex Hamilton


Don't touch the hair