It is supposed to be the night of every high school student's dreams. Girls trounce about every mall in town in search of the perfect rhinestone-encrusted dress. Boys enlist their mothers to take them to the florist and pick out the perfect matching fuchsia-colored corsage. Pictures are taken. Limousines are rented. But the wonderful night always has the possibility of encountering a few snafus. Perhaps the limo comes late. Maybe the cheerleader and the quarterback predictably win prom queen and king. Or maybe, the psychotic science teacher that thought he was in love with you and killed your whole family escaped from jail. This last idea is the basis for the newest horror film in theaters, a remake aptly titled Prom Night.
It is important to note that Prom Night is rated PG-13. This means that, although there are quite a few killings, the gore factor is extremely low. There are only small stab wounds on each of the victims and very little blood overall. The movie studio clearly sacrificed some of the staples of the genre to draw in younger crowds - not a quality-based decision.
The cast should have been the first indicator that Prom Night was made for the teeny bopper demographic of the movie-going audience. Brittany Snow, formerly of the NBC throwback show American Dreams, plays the lead character Donna Keppel. Snow did the best with what she had, but her acting chops did not match up to her performances in American Dreams or Hairspray. The majority of the actors are young unknowns, completely dispensable in the eyes of the horror genre.
One interesting casting choice was Scott Porter in the role of Snow's boyfriend, Bobby. Porter is best known for his role as the paralyzed Jason Street in another NBC drama, Friday Night Lights. But while Porter plays a high school student in Lights, he is at least surrounded by other older people to make his 29 years less obvious. In this movie, however, he looks like a 29-year-old creeper who is scamming on the 21-year-old Snow. The acting abilities of Porter are far superior to any of the other nameless actors playing high school students, but he looks supremely out of place.
The film starts with a flashback sequence in which Donna describes a recurring dream to her psychologist. This is where we find out that three years ago, Donna came home from the movies to find her father and brother dead and witnessed the stabbing of her mother. Through the ramblings of a detective downtown at the police station, we later find out that the killer was Donna's science teacher Richard Fenton, played eerily well by Jonathan Schaech (most famous for playing the principled lead singer of the Wonders in That Thing You Do!). The police officials talk about the journals that Fenton kept, outlining his obsession with disturbing sketches and proclamations of his love for Donna.
The back story of Fenton's infatuation with her was the most interesting and scary part of Prom Night. Had the film stuck to that as the main focus, it would have made for an excellent thriller. But the film seemed much more like a prom movie that just happened to have a psycho killer, than a psycho killer film that just happened to take place around prom. Again, bad decisions from the movie studio.
The prom sequences were painful to watch, and made the 88-minute movie seem much longer. From the cheesy scenes in the limo to the completely unrealistic red carpet arrival, the prom was nothing like reality. Instead, it seemed like you were watching an episode of The Hills. Snow and her co-stars had zero chemistry, as their high school banter seemed extremely forced and awkward. The residual "third friend" was the worst actress of them all and quite predictably the first to be killed. It was sad that the horrible young actors got more screen time than the more established actors of the film, especially Schaech, who was truly fantastic as the psychotic killer.
The moral of the story of Prom Night is that the PG-13 rating hindered it from being a pretty good horror movie. If you're interested in watching optimum prom scenes with little fright, by all means go see this movie. But my suggestion would be to stay in and watch your TV for free, because a few episodes of Law and Order: SVU and The Hills will give you the same idea. C-
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