I thought I would post my Letterboxd reaction to a film I have long maligned, often to the chagrin of some of my fellow crammers.
I stand corrected.
Prom Night is not, in fact,
The Second Worst Slasher Ever.
After attending The Broad Theater's screening of it last night I must admit the film is far better than I have ever given it credit for. Yes, it is slow at times and yes, it fumbles at times. But it is a competent slasher with some surprisingly good direction, moments of surprising humanity, and a genuinely tragic if jarringly abrupt ending.
It is also amusing how obvious Jamie Lee Curtis' star-quality is in this very low-budget film (recalling my previous position on Helen Hunt in
Trancers), more so than is really evident in
Halloween, even though she's obviously the best that film has to offer outside of Donald Pleasance. And who knew she's a helluva dancer too?
If I may pick some of the nits that have bothered me in the past which came up again on this viewing - and, to be clear, these are nits I had forgotten but became painfully obvious again on this re-watch - I submit the following:
There are some really good shots in this movie demonstrating legitimate vision on the part of someone. However, these are interspersed between amateurish dragging about of the camera for much of the time in between. Whether the director knew the shots he wanted and got the camera in the right place despite a bad cinematographer or a good cinematographer framed some great shots for a visionless director is unclear, though I favor the former considering how well the film holds together overall. It is documented that most if not all of the crew had literally just graduated from film school.
The jarringly abrupt ending to the film, with the credits rolling before the audience can really even process what has been revealed, actually lowers the film's class like a whole level for me. Why not be clearer here? Did everyone in the theater even understand what happened and why? Why not linger on the moment long enough to resolve the way it should make the audience feel? I'm not sure that a full denouement scene here would have been unwelcome.
Another concerning issue for me, particularly with regard to the ending, was the focus on the grief of the parents of the original victim and the abandonment thereof after the movie's tragic reveal. We spend a little time with the film's biggest star portraying the father of the victim, as well as his wife, the mother of the victim, and how they are effected. Then there is a scene perhaps halfway through the film between him and the later-revealed killer that feels in retrospect like it should have meant something... but because we only see either of the parents for a fleeting moment the entire rest of the film it doesn't. When compounded with that fleeting moment, a quick scene of the
parents of the victim apparently leaving
for the prom (yes they have other children there but the moment is clearly about their grief), a seeming setup for... something... but then we never see them again... it feels like a half-baked idea that didn't even get baked in post. Considering the reveal, why didn't we see them
then?! The audience's stunned reaction to the credits suddenly rolling confirmed that I am not crazy on this point. It took about ten seconds for the room to process that the film had actually ended.
The last issue I had, and it's funny because it has really bothered me a
LOT each time I've seen it, despite forgetting about it in between each viewing (but then rediscovering how much it rankled me), was an odd thematic shift seemingly for no reason other than to resolve a set piece (that was apparently forced on the film by the production company). The film goes through some exertion to establish the killer's weapon as being
very specific and for very good reason. There are multiple scenes establishing how it is obtained, foreshadowing its use, and why exactly it is what it is. It's even on the ******* poster! And then, exactly halfway through the kills (2/4), the killer just picks up a random axe and uses that for the rest of the movie. Just like that, the main visual thematic component of the film, which was laboriously introduced, is no longer relevant and completely forgotten by the film, though not by the audience who are left to wonder,
"Why did they even bother to establish a very good idea only to completely abandon it?" And while on the subject of the poster, the introduction of the mask found thereon and prominent in the film is completely bungled by a shot that should have been there but isn't.
Nits now picked, I must admit that the movie's positives, a cogent script, multiple credible red-herrings, better-than-expected performances of characters you can actually identify, and a strong climax, as well as moments of both pathos and actual tragedy, certainly outweigh its shortcomings.
In short, if that is still possible,
Prom Night won me over.
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