Prom Night (2008) *
Reviews have been getting a bit too positive of late so I thought I’d have a look at Prom Night (2008) to redress the balance a bit. This movie probably isn’t even worth the time and (half-hearted) effort to write up this review, but here goes…
It’s senior prom night for Donna (Brittany Snow) and her best friends. With her boyfriend Bobby (Scott Porter) and two other couples, she’s booked into a suite at the hotel where the prom is being held. It should be a wonderful night. Anyway Donna has ‘issues’, she suffers from nightmares in which she replays the terrible night when her family were killed by her ex-teacher Richard Fenton (Jonathan Schaech) who was obsessed with her. He was caught and sent to a mental institution somewhere miles away. Would you believe it, he’s only gone and escaped and has turned up at the very same hotel. He checks in and kills a few people; the chambermaid, a porter and three of Donnas friends before closing in on Donna. The cop (Idris Elba, what were you thinking?) who helped put Richard away is alerted that he’s escaped, three days after the breakout! He heads to the hotel to protect Donna.
So what’s wrong with it? Well, the script is so clichéd that I thought it must have been written by a 12 year old who’d just seen ‘Halloween’ and a few episodes of whatever the kids are watching these days (insert generic teen crap TV show here) and thought that by mixing them together he’d struck gold. Struck a sewer pipe maybe… It’s shit. It lacked any originality in its ridiculously predictable plot and stereotypical characters. The acting (Ha!) was terrible by almost everyone, and again, Idris Elba, what were you thinking..?
The direction took the clichés from the script and obviously surmising that there weren’t enough of them on screen decided to throw in more for good measure. I have no idea how many times we see a character open/close a mirrored door to have someone appear in it but it has to be a world record. Suspense..? What’s that? There’s none on display and for a horror movie it’s usually kind of a pre-requisite. Atmosphere… ditto. Violence… No. Nudity… get real it’s for kids. On that, what’s the point of a slasher flick for kids..? The killings are quite bloodless and no fun at all. Part of the slasher flick appeal is seeing new and unusual ways that generally good looking scantily clad teenagers get killed. Not here. I would have liked this more if everyone had been killed in the first 5 minutes therefore saving me from wasting my time.
It’s not even a bad remake of the original Prom Night (1981) which was a fun slasher flick. Apart from the prom setting this shares nothing in common with the original.
Quality: 1 out of 5 stars
Any good: No, no stars
socialpsychol 