Prom Night has a certain amount of cachet for those who remember the 1980 original. The first version starred scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, already a veteran by then of the genre, having starred in the original Halloween two years earlier, as well as The Fog, just prior to making Prom Night. That said … forget everything you know or remember about the original Prom Night because this 2008 film with the same name is in no way a remake, nor does it bear, beyond the title, the faintest resemblance to the original.
While it remains to be seen if Brittany Snow can assemble a career remotely like that of Jamie Lee Curtis, her work here is not quite as memorable. Of course, part of the problem is the script, which moves the horror movie conventions away from their traditional environs and shifts them to a 21st century wish-fulfillment fantasy land. This Prom Night is no children’s book, but it’s also not exceptionally scary, either.
Here’s the main problem: early horror films like Halloween and Prom Night worked primarily because they took place in blue-collar suburban settings that nearly everyone could relate to. By comparison, Snow’s Donna Keppel is taking part in a prom night celebration set in one of the ritziest Manhattan hotels one could imagine, with a prom DJ only a high school populated by the very rich could afford.
All this glamor may look flashy on the silver screen, but distances the character of Donna Keppel and her world from the average viewer; this is what many of us may wish our high school proms had been like, but it is far removed from the experience of most people. This, in turn, makes the terror of being stalked by a prison escapee similarly emotionally distant from the audience, combining to make the film less scary.
Released in an unrated edition that is a mere 60 seconds longer than the theatrical version, the film was originally rated PG-13 in theaters and this version seems to be not much more risqué than the one seen on Cineplex screens nationwide. I imagine the difference would be something along the lines of a few seconds here are there showing the killer’s knife with blood on it, or something.
There is a pseudo-documentary included that “investigates” the Prom Night murders, but few of the special features are all that interesting. Had the movie been more effective, perhaps the special features would carry more cachet to them; but since the film is all glitzy Hollywood/New York wish fulfillment, rather than gritty and relatable, there’s not much here that will send shivers down one’s spine.
