Prom Night (2008)


REVIEWER RATING: 
4/10


I was never a big fan of the original 1980 film starring Jamie Lee Curtis, in fact, I found it quite boring. Naturally, when news broke of a remake, I wasn't exactly opposed to the idea. However, once I learned of the young cast of pretty faces and the PG-13 rating, it became clear that this would likely end up much worse than the original. Naturally when you aim a film towards a general audience, specifically a younger one, the quality of the product is reduced drastically. Sure, older horror films pulled it off (before the PG-13 rating was put into affect), but they relied on atmosphere and storytelling to move the film forward; both of which are missing in this feature.

Although a remake, the only thing that really remains remotely similar to the original are the title and theme of a killer on the loose during Prom, while the rest of the movie has been pretty much changed to play towards a younger and more attention-lacking audience. The story in this film follows Brittany Snow's character "Donna", who was forced to witness the murder of her family years prior by a teacher that was unnaturally obsessed with her. The man is sent to prison, which he somehow easily escapes (through the vents!?) and makes his way to Donna's senior prom at a lavish hotel. The teacher slashes his way through all those that stand in his way before finally coming face to face with the girl he "loves".

Not only is the movie's premise simple, but they decided to skip the whole who-dun-it theme and showed us off the bat who the killer was, so all that's left to keep us watching are the kills. That's the one and only positive thing this movie has to offer -- the high body count. Sadly, all the death scenes (the ones on screen anyway) were just simple stabs to the gut or a slash to the neck, and somehow we still barely see any blood. After he slices up someone we see their shirt stained with blood, while the floor and rest of the room they were killed in remained perfectly clean. You'd think that after repeated stab wounds that we'd see some specks of blood somewhere on the floors or furnishing, and it's pretty obvious that the guy doesn't really care whether he's caught or not, so he's not going to waste time cleaning up the mess.

The film also manages to offer zero scares or suspense. All the "scares" we see are of the lead actress getting spooked by someone or something that pops out of nowhere. Like for instance, when she quickly turns around and finds herself screaming at a lamp! You know the old scare tactic where the lead opens the medicine cabinet with a mirror and sees someone standing behind them when they close it? Well, they do that in this film, not once, but twice! How stupid do these filmmakers think we are? I think this is the first movie I've seen where they attempted to use the same exact scare tactic twice. Congrats on being entirely unoriginal fellas!

To make things even more unrealistic, not only do all these "teenagers" look like something straight from some WB or MTV programming, but they are filthy rich, or at least the school is, because the prom was set inside a huge lavish hotel and the dance floor seemed like one big club. I mean really, the rooms these "teens" get look like they'd cost a couple thousand a night, who's paying for all this? Sadly, director Nelson McCormicks reign isn't over yet, as he's also behind the camera of The Stepfather remake, which I'm sure will be yet another wasted PG-13 effort. When will it end!? The only reason why I'm not giving it a lower rating is due to the fact that it at least kept my interest and I've seen worse feature films.

Prom Night brings unoriginality to new levels, from its premise to its scares; the movie offers no redeeming qualities and proves that once again Hollywood doesn't care about delivering quality remakes. Do yourself a favor and stand clear of this disasterpiece.
OVERALL: 
Prom Night brings unoriginality to new levels, from its premise to its scares; the movie offers no redeeming qualities and proves that once again Hollywood doesn't care about delivering quality remakes. Do yourself a favor and stand clear of this disasterpiece.


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