Friday, April 11, 2008

Day 11: Prom Night (1980)


Tonight the remake was released into theaters, which I'll be seeing tomorrow. So I figured I should take a gander at this classic original to see what all the hubbub is all about.

And what we got, frankly, is a combination of "Halloween" and "Carrie".

We start off in the early, or middle, 70's and some kids are playing a weird version of hide-and-seek but the seeker is The Killer and each person The Killer finds is Killed. This is all suppose to be ironic, you see. Anyway, three other kids happen across the closed down school the Killer Kids are playing in and decide to not get "killed". But one girl, who's name really isn't that important and you'll see why, decides it sounds like fun to be killed.

So she goes in, gets chased around for some reason, and really gets killed when she flies out the window. The Killer Kids decide not to tell ANYBODY about this and just leave. Later Father Leslie Neilsen finds his daughter dead.

Flashforward to six years. In that time, they pinned the murder on some guy who while being pursued by cops gets in a car accident and is lit on fire. So this guy is not only accused of a murder he didn't commit, but he gets burned to hell too. So naturally, this is the big set up when we find out this guy escaped the prison he was in.

Now we focus on The Killer Kids in high school and Jamie Lee Curtis, which makes this even more like "Halloween". Jamie Lee is the older sister of the girl that got killed and she's friends with two of the Killer Kids, and boinking the third. The 4th is a total bitch to everyone, even Jamie Lee for some reason that I didn't pick up. And the creepy thing is Jamie Lynn's brother in the movie looks like the guy she's boinking. I kept getting them confused and made the whole thing quite disturbing.

Anyway, this movie takes for-fucking-ever to set everything up. We meet literally ten thousand creepy people who SHOULD be killers but aren't. There's a "student" who looks to be 30 and he has a unibrow. Bitchy Chick takes him to Prom so she can get revenge on Jamie Lynn for whatever reason.

I took this image for three reasons. Two are on Jamie Lee. And third cause of the signs. "Uh, hi yeah. I'd like to visit the girls changing room please." "Yeah sure, just sign here."

After the killer makes a bunch of semi-threatening phone calls and stalks them around school, it's FINALLY prom! And we're about 50 minutes into the damn movie. No one gets killed yet cause now it's time to sit through 10 minutes...

OF FUCKING DISCO DANCING!!! ARRGH!!! And this goes on for-fucking-ever as well. I thought I was watching Solid Gold for a minute.

FINALLY, one of the Killer Kids is killed, but it could've been avoided cause she was just about to have sex with some guy but she decided her body is worthy it or some crap and says no. Guy leaves and girl gets killed. See, you died a virgin. WTG!

And Bitchy Chick is chased around the school for 10 minutes until she's finally killed. One thing about this damn movie is half the scenes that happened at night are too fucking dark. It's like whoever directed this movie used the Ed Wood style of directing. "Well, IT IS dark outside, so it would be dark in these areas. If we have a light here, we'd have to explain where the light was coming from."

An actual shot from this movie.

Oh and one of the other Killer Chicks is getting it on with a dude that TOTALLY looked like me if I was around in the late 70's/early 80's. And I drove a sweet van. And he got laid. I'm so lucky. Well, not so much. Cause he, and the Killer Chick get killed in a scene I called 20 minutes prior. It's hard to explain without seeing it. If me and you ever end up watching this together, I'll let you know what it was.

So now it's just the dude Jamie Lee is boinking. And we get into a subplot that makes no sense. See, Bitchy Chick only took Unibrow to prom to help her get revenge on Jamie Lee for whatever the hell it was. Jamie Lee and Killer Dude were voted King and Queen of Prom, so they had to go up on stage to get their crowns and be praised and all that other shit. So the plan was, as far as I could tell, was have Unibrow take Last Killer Dude, tie him up, and Unibrow was gonna take the place of Killer Dude. Since there were roughly 50 adults/teachers there, AND police looking out for the Accused Killer, I dunno how far this plan would've gotten

But we don't find out cause the coolest thing happens in this movie. The killer thinks Unibrow is Killer Dude so he kills Unibrow and his head fucking goes flying through the curtins and down the little runway!! I literally screamed "HOLY SHIT!!" and now my neighbors are calling the police on me. So I have to quickly wrap this up.

After a long ass strugle, and me thinking the killer is really Leslie Neilsen since he dissappeared at the halfway mark of the movie, AND the cops say they found the REAL ACCUSED KILLER 50 miles away (alive and of normal size), we find out who the real killer is. And it kinda makes sense, kinda doesn't.

The killer was Jamie Lee's brother, who is dressed in drag. The drag part came out of nowhere, unless they were trying to rip off "Psycho" too. He saw The Killer Kids sort of kill the little girl and knew they didn't tell anyone they were responsible. So...he waited six whole years and decided to get his revenge on this particular night!! No, I don't know why he waited so long or why it had to be Prom Night. I guess only because it's the title of the movie. If it was titled "Regular Ol' Night", then he would've killed them right away.

So that's basically the whole movie. The only good part, great part actually, came at the very end, and I have to say this movie tricked me with it's twist ending. But everything else prior just plain sucked. It was either too slow, too boring, or too dark. And the disco music. AND dancing. Ugh.

This even looks like a scene from "Halloween", doesn't it?

I have my doubts this remake is gonna be any better. This movie already had the feel of a teen drama so I can't imagine how the remake is gonna handle all the pre-murdering teens stuff. Oh and you probably picked up on how this movie is like "Carrie" but probably not "Halloween". It's just the stuff in the beginning with the killer breaking out, then the teenagers thinking they see someone following them, and the killer driving by. Plus the inclusion of Jamie Lee Curtis doesn't really help any. There was even a doctor helping the police catch the killer. He too dissappeared around the middle of the movie, but whatever.


-Jason

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