Prom Night (1980) - Everything Is Alright!

So I received in the mail from Amazon the Synapse Blu Ray of Prom Night (1980) and to say I was excited to see it, actually see it as intended, is an understatement. The bad copies I’ve dealt with for some time, seeing this transfer, pristine compared to the junk quality of previous prints, was such an improvement. While most of the television additions that were excised included on the special features—the Horrors of Hamilton High doc, with members of the cast (Joy Thompson, Wincott, Mary Beth Rubens, and Tough, all offer some fun anecdotes), prosthetic head creator, the art director, musician Zaza, and director Lynch gives fans insight into the film’s genesis, onset difficulties and budgetary constraints, and what it was like to work with Jamie Lee Curtis—are really rather insignificant (I did enjoy “Passing Notes” where Curtis, Oliver, and Thompson are in science class eventually irritating the teacher enough that he gives them detention, and some extras involving Nielsen and Antoinette Bower, as the parents of Curtis and Tough, still not recovered from the lost of the daughter killed at the beginning of the film sort of further illustrates what Tough’s Alex and Curtis’ Kim have had to grow up with for the last six years, show the weight of loss, but the temporary secretary cut out of the film completely is more or less a non-factor to the overall plot, explaining why Adele (photogenic, pretty blond charmer, Elizabeth Mason) is briefly seen at the prom but nowhere else), it was nice to see them myself for the first time. I’m glad, though, they were left out of the film and not included as novelty. While I always found Nielsen’s absence from portions of the film—especially the ending when all hell breaks loose and he’s nowhere in sight—very troublesome, what was left out I didn’t mind too much. I just wish we had a reason why he just vanishes from the film never to be seen again. Granted, I haven’t seen the Outtakes portion of the special features just yet, the film as is seems okay with what was left cut, reemerging on television to substitute for nudity and shower room titillation…the editor in charge of inserting and excising gives us an explanation as to what his job was and what was expected.

All the technical aspects and Blu Ray features aside, I was sort of mulling over whether I wanted to watch this once or twice. I really just wanted to watch it Friday night but I still might revisit it one more time in May, but much like Friday the 13^th and Halloween franchises, I think 2020 will be final say on the blog for “Prom Night”. I have written at length about the film in the past, my problems with it and why I seem to find it easy to watch, I might have two last pieces available for the blog.

I think now that I can actually see it, really allowed a clear, crisp picture quality as never before, “Prom Night” is practically a brand new film. And while I get why the film isn’t for all slasher fans—it just doesn’t feature the particulars many want in their choice of this genre specifically in a way that shocks and awes—it has grown on me over the last 30 years. I didn’t like it at all when I was really getting into slashers as a teenager, as my brother had rented it, both of us really excited to try out “Prom Night”. It had a reputation and in the early 90s a VHS was always available of the film. As you often seen describing it from slasher fans unimpressed, it was ‘slow, plodding, and uneventful’…those were the reasons I didn’t like it, either, as a youth. But I thought the killer in that glittery black ski mask, all clad in black, was an effective killer, the unveiling of his identity is haunting because of what transpired in the past when all involved were children, and the girls cast with Curtis were all quite likeable and realistic (although they were in their early 20s at the time). And the old school at the beginning, with its abandoned decrepit look, was the perfect accident for any kids that ventured in waiting to happen. The fall to the glass below of the victim is still jarring. So the tragedy of the beginning, and sadness of Curtis’ eyes once she realizes who the killer is, knowing she used his ax to stop him from harming her boyfriend, land well with me.

My mother was 19 when she gave birth to me in 1977, the month Elvis died and when “Saturday Night Fever” was #1 at the box office. So I was a “Disco baby”. So when I watch “Prom Night” it is like seeing my mother and her peers living it up on the dance floor. They were all that young then. Curtis and Casey Stevens (he died in the early 80s of what I read was “Aids complications”) on the dance floor set to Zaza’s “Prom Night…Everything is Alright” is definitely a highlight to some and a relic best left in its time to others who hate Disco. I find that damn song hard to forget for days on end after I watch this film. It just rattles in the brain on loop. But watching Curtis go and Stevens keep up is admittedly impressive to me. When I pop in the Blu Ray, I’m sure the dance featured before you make your selection, I’ll immediately smile because of Curtis. She’s so good, though. The right reactions to the right situations, even when at odds with Anne-Marie Martin over Stevens in their tense love triangle…all the high school melodrama will always alienate a section of slasher fans who want nothing to do with two gals catty over a guy. But if you were a teenager in late 79, early 1980, or even during the 80s growing up with the film, “Prom Night” will remain a cult favorite if out of pure nostalgia reasons.

I hope to have more to say in May as new graduates plan to leave high school for the great unknown of life in 2020.