As kids, a group of friends push a girl out of a window and she dies in a most heinous manner. Many years later, the same friends (who look thirty, but are apparently eighteen) are ready to go to the prom, but a masked killer wants them all dead. Is it the madman who recently escaped from the insane asylum? To find out, you will have to wait for the shocking conclusion...
As my headline proclaims, I thought this was a horror classic. And I still think some people think it is, because they made numerous sequels and a lackluster remake recently came out. But I want to know why. This film was mostly boring, with really awful lighting and characters I could not keep straight or give two figs about. It comes across as something like "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (only much earlier, obviously), except for one major difference: the girl who gets killed in the beginning is certainly very dead.
Director Paul Lynch should not take pride in this. Not that he has done anything to really take pride in (besides some decent episodes of "Star Trek"). If I were to sit down and enjoy a chai tea with Paul, I would have so many questions to ask him about what possessed him to make such an awful film. And then I would make him buy my tea. (Though, to be fair, this was an early attempt from him, having really only worked on the forgotten "Blood & Guts", which was also written by "Prom Night"'s William Gray, who penned the much better "The Changeling" that same year.)
The casting is confusing. Leslie Neilsen appears, in a serious role, but he adds essentially nothing to the movie for the brief moments he is in it. Jamie Lee Curtis, fresh from "Halloween", shows up as the heroine and I think we are supposed to think she is an attractive teenager. But she looks like a 30-year old cross-dressing man. If people in 1980 thought this was sexy, I am really glad I was not around to be a part of that. Then again, my friend Seth still does, so who knows? All the other actors are forgettable, besides maybe Sheldon Rybowski, the guy who plays Slick.
Only one scene in the entire movie was actually cool for the horror fans, and you will have to wait for over an hour to see it -- and if you blink or do not have slow-motion on your DVD player, you may likely miss it. I will not say what happens, but a character gets killed. Very quickly.
There is also a really elaborate dancing scene (that I hope is in the remake, but disco probably is not cool anymore). I enjoyed that, and I freely admit it. So, despite all the trash I talk in this review, I have to confess there were parts I liked... oh, you know, like every scene with Slick.
I suppose with the remake having come out, you should watch the original first. Might give you some perspective. I thought it was safe to say the new one would be vastly superior, especially if they had cast up and coming starlets like Mary Elizabeth Winstead. But they did not, and that is just my personal bias. So, it seems the old boring film might be better than the new... a small miracle, really. The one thing that is hard about being a horror fan is trying to explain why Jamie Lee Curtis is a horror actress... and I just do not have the heart to defend her. Do not watch this film unless you want to be confused and disappointed.
Synapse Films is releasing a 2K digital restoration in 2014. I was able to catch an advance screening, though I have to say it falls under that old story: you can polish a poop, but it is still a poop.
As my headline proclaims, I thought this was a horror classic. And I still think some people think it is, because they made numerous sequels and a lackluster remake recently came out. But I want to know why. This film was mostly boring, with really awful lighting and characters I could not keep straight or give two figs about. It comes across as something like "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (only much earlier, obviously), except for one major difference: the girl who gets killed in the beginning is certainly very dead.
Director Paul Lynch should not take pride in this. Not that he has done anything to really take pride in (besides some decent episodes of "Star Trek"). If I were to sit down and enjoy a chai tea with Paul, I would have so many questions to ask him about what possessed him to make such an awful film. And then I would make him buy my tea. (Though, to be fair, this was an early attempt from him, having really only worked on the forgotten "Blood & Guts", which was also written by "Prom Night"'s William Gray, who penned the much better "The Changeling" that same year.)
The casting is confusing. Leslie Neilsen appears, in a serious role, but he adds essentially nothing to the movie for the brief moments he is in it. Jamie Lee Curtis, fresh from "Halloween", shows up as the heroine and I think we are supposed to think she is an attractive teenager. But she looks like a 30-year old cross-dressing man. If people in 1980 thought this was sexy, I am really glad I was not around to be a part of that. Then again, my friend Seth still does, so who knows? All the other actors are forgettable, besides maybe Sheldon Rybowski, the guy who plays Slick.
Only one scene in the entire movie was actually cool for the horror fans, and you will have to wait for over an hour to see it -- and if you blink or do not have slow-motion on your DVD player, you may likely miss it. I will not say what happens, but a character gets killed. Very quickly.
There is also a really elaborate dancing scene (that I hope is in the remake, but disco probably is not cool anymore). I enjoyed that, and I freely admit it. So, despite all the trash I talk in this review, I have to confess there were parts I liked... oh, you know, like every scene with Slick.
I suppose with the remake having come out, you should watch the original first. Might give you some perspective. I thought it was safe to say the new one would be vastly superior, especially if they had cast up and coming starlets like Mary Elizabeth Winstead. But they did not, and that is just my personal bias. So, it seems the old boring film might be better than the new... a small miracle, really. The one thing that is hard about being a horror fan is trying to explain why Jamie Lee Curtis is a horror actress... and I just do not have the heart to defend her. Do not watch this film unless you want to be confused and disappointed.
Synapse Films is releasing a 2K digital restoration in 2014. I was able to catch an advance screening, though I have to say it falls under that old story: you can polish a poop, but it is still a poop.