Review

Donna Keppel is all aglow because it's her senior Prom night, that strange U.S. custom of having a final fling before leaving the sheltered workshop of high school and entering adulthood. The only blight on her horizon is getting over the trauma of seeing her mother butchered, thankfully off screen, by a Psycho teacher who wants Donna all to himself. Yawn, seems Donna is not taking her meds, leading her to seeing Richard Fenton, the lovelorn teacher in question, in a sort of Tommy Jarvis way circa Friday the 13th Part V.

After some framing scenes that were really bollocks, Donna and her crew jump on the big stretch limo and head to their night of nights. But this is a new generation, no gymnasium and streamers for these kids, it's all glitter and glam in a high class hotel's ballroom. Naturally Richard Fenton, who has been spending some quality time with Michael Myers at a nut house, escapes and also heads for the prom. Hey it's Idris Elba, uhmm, I mean Detective Winn, trying to stop the inevitable bloodbath, no wait, I mean off-screen killings, this is PG13 purgatory kids. What has to be one of the worst Studio slashers of the naughties ensues.

First things first, Prom Night (2008) may claim to be a remake of the happenings at Hamilton High School back in 1980, but in reality it's a remake in name only. Surprisingly the latest incarnation is a much worse flick then its earlier namesake. The original was a Canadian production that helped head in the golden age of slashers, and which also helped lay down the ground rules that modern tween writers seem to think was the work of Friday the 13th only. Sorry guys, do a modicum of fracking research, such as checking release dates to see who was influenced by whom here. Anyways, for all intents and purposes Prom Night (2008) is a standalone film trying to live off a previous franchise name.

We all onboard the soul train here? - good, moving along. Prom Night (2008) was the second of my 2008 Halloween horror movie marathon picks and pretty much put an end to the evening. We still had two more movies scheduled (The Serpent and the Rainbow and Bad Boy Bubby for those wondering), but after sitting through one of the worst genre flicks of 2008 the agreement was made to pull up stumps and declare the innings closed. Yes, the movie is bad enough to kill off a horror night for hardened fans; I would go so far as to say it sucks the life out of this universe and all alternate ones. Director McCormick starts his movie okay with the prologue and lulls the audience into a false expectation of a decent slasher. A younger, that chick never ages, she looks exactly the same three years later, arrives home after going to some unnamed movie with her friend Lisa. She searches high and low for any family member and just for an instant McCormick mines gold. Donna doesn't see her Dad slumped dead on the sofa but the audience do. Remember Donna is calling out to people here; this is important to understanding the fundamental flaw in McCormick's opening gambit. Donna discovers her brother dead on his bed and scrambles away to hide under her bed, as final gals do don't you know. Well actually they don't, but see next paragraph on that score. It just so happens that our Psycho for the evening is currently enquiring of Donna's mom where Donna might be on such a fine evening, and ends up murdering Mom in frantic fashion in front of Donna's eyes, but averted from the audience's eyes. There's a surprising lack of blood going down there, considering the multiple stab wounds. What's wrong with this scene? - Donna has been waking the dead trying to find out where her family are at, yet Mr Fenton, who must be terminally deaf, doesn't hear her! The first of oh so many logic bombs goes down as director McCormick proves he knows bugger all about making a slasher flick. A quick IMDB check elicits the news that McCormick has done a whole bunch of television stuff, but not a lot of motion pictures, horror or otherwise, what a surprise! He's also going to murder the remake of The Stepfather (2009) so there's a film to avoid.

In a movie with so much going wrong it's pretty hard to keep the arrows of outrageous fortune down to just a few shafts. Guess we should start off with a couple of slasher conventions that McCormick murders, no pun intended. Did anyone watching this film actually care about any of the victims? Nope, neither did I; if this is the future of the U.S. then you guys have more to worried about than a stock market collapse. Paper thin characters channelled by paper thin actors, no one is going on to a bright glittering career based on this movie. McCormick and his cast of McDonald's crew members simply have no idea what they are doing here. Anyone else find the crowd gathered at the red carpet entrance to the Prom really weird? Do Americans turn up for the opening of a cigarette packet or something? These are meant to be average high school kids going to an end of festivities dance, so what was with the rent-a-crowd? Why exactly did we have the subplot about Prom King and Queen again? It went absolutely nowhere and had no effect on proceedings; a good editor would have cut that whole malarkey toot sweet. Was this film simply an overlong advertisement for the soundtrack?

If the characters here are representative of the future of the U.S, then that Country is fracked!

To round out this part of the review, and I don't even want to be reminded of the by-the-numbers lensing of the whole shambles or the 101 monkeys-typed script that apparently existed, the whole shenanigan can be melted down to dumb teens doing dumb things and deserving to fall to the blade of Mr Fenton. This Psycho doesn't even have to do anything like stalking, his victims come to him! And yes, I did note the wholesale steal from Silence of the Lambs as the producers of this "teen in peril" non starter for ten showed they singularly lacked anything approaching an original thought.

Brittany Snow (Donna) has been getting some great wraps for her performance here, sorry to disagree. Snow couldn't act if her life depended upon it and turned in one of the worst ever final girl slasher performances. And yes, your bum looked about the size of a battleship in that dress. Scott Porter (Bobby) managed to irritate me every time he appeared on screen and opened his mouth; where did they drag this guy in from? Porter would be hard pressed to be believable in a daytime soap. Jessica Stroup (Claire) and Dana Davis (Lisa) were simply there to add cleavage, as they can't act. Idris Elba (Detective Winn) was slumming it but managed not to laugh his arse off at the script and the totally inept dialogue he was given.

Full marks to Jonathon Schaech (Richard Fenton), chilling performance Bro. You could readily believe Fenton was on spectrum and had no issue with doing whatever it took to get the prize. Schaech underplayed it and let his eyes do all the acting he needed to do.

In terms of T&A you ain't getting none. Apparently U.S. teens need to be protected from naughty bits, though screen violence is considered totally okay. I don't even want to think about the implications there.

Paul Haslinger delivered a by-the-numbers score for a by-the-numbers movie. Nothing remotely original or, pun intended, noteworthy. Kaboomtish, I'll get my coat. Can post-production people learn that rupturing ear drums during "scary moments" �doesn't work anymore, even the brain dead teen demographic that is apparently the fodder for modern slashers are probably hip to the device now. We also get lots of pop/rock ditties and for our collective sins some white bread safe rap.

What a deplorable money grabbing outing Prom Night (2008) really is. Finally Hollywood have come clean and simply delivered a totally by-the-numbers outing that has no redeeming features. We have a final girl of teen male dreams, she simply screams her way through the movie and never hangs tough, things happening because that's the only way the scriptwriter could think of advancing things, and the very concept of a subplot drowned at birth. A totally brainless film made for a brainless audience with all the attention span of a sleep-deprived sea cucumber. If this is what passes for a horror movie in the modern era then we are in deep trouble. No I didn't enjoy the movie, but did manage to make popcorn, brew a coffee, get a round of drinks, and plan my assault on the garden while the supposed plot line ambled along to its preordained conclusion.

Prom Night cost $20 million to make, which is about $19 million more than any studio outside Hollywood would have spent, and managed to drag in $44 million in North America before bombing in every international market it was released in. Reports out of the U.S. had the movie heavily supported by female teen demographics which actually proves the Studio totally correct in their assumption that you only really need a good title to shill the rubes on planet teen. Once again a cynical money making ploy folks, the studio should be ashamed of themselves for even conceiving of this bollocks.

No recommendations on Prom Night (2008); go watch the original film which at least had the most bumbling serial killer ever to grace our screens and the awesome Jamie Lee chicken dance. There's nothing original to be seen here, it's all been done before, and infinitely better. Don't add your name to this movie's dance card; it's going to step on your toes.