Donna’s senior prom is supposed to be the best night of her life.. After surviving a horrible tragedy, she has finally moved on and is enjoying her last year of high school.. Surrounded by her best friends, she should be safe from the horrors of her past.. But when the night turns deadly, there is only one person who could be responsible, a man she thought was gone forever.. Now, Donna and her friends must find a way to escape the sadistic rampage of an obsessed killer, and survive a night ” to die for..”

Rated: [ M ] Moderate violence

Cinema release: 10th April 2008

Running time: 90 minutes

Stars: Brittany Snow, Kellan Lutz, Brianne Davis

Hollywood is guilty of a lot of things when it comes to the horror genre but nothing so woefully bad as Prom Night.. While no one should expect high art from teen slasher flicks, this is more like finger painting..

Inspired by the 1980 original, which starred then ‘ scream queen ‘ actress Jamie Lee Curtis, it bears no resemblance to its predecessor other than the name.. Three years before her senior prom, Donna’s family are killed by her teacher, whose obsession with her has led to them taking out a restraining order.. He escapes from prison while serving a life sentence to hunt down the object of his desire on her night of nights..

Certainly the Curtis Prom Night isn’t great cinema, even for the ghettoized genre in which it exists, but the comparison between it and the current film must be made if only to illustrate the bizarre abandonment of the prom itself that Snow and McCormick ( And screenwriter J.S. The Covenant Cardone ) choose to take..
Prom Night knows precisely two tricks: The loud ” misdirection fake scares ” that come standard in just about every lame - ass horror movie, and the howlingly amateurish ” POV cheat..” ( This is when the director, using very simple film grammar, indicates that the camera lens is temporarily standing in for the killer’s perspective - but when a different character looks in ” our ” direction, they see nothing.. It’s evidence of a director aping some well - worn conventions without having any reason or skill..) McCormick uses these generic tricks about seven times each, and every time we’re set up for another sadly ineffective jolt, the movie sinks deeper and deeper into the swamp of awfulness..

The acting from all involved is laughable, but in particular from Brittany Snow who plays Donna.. The script has had an extra helping of cheese, and includes everything you have seen before - the requisite reflection on school coming to an end, the joy of seeing your prom date coming down the stairs, and the entourage of friends whose deaths are so obvious and comical that it is hard to feel sorry for them..

The cast is typically beautiful and forgettable, even, unfortunately, Friday Night Lights‘ Scott Porter, who is stuck in the thankless role of Snow’s emasculated boyfriend.. Anyone who has ever seen a slasher film knows that this guy is not going to be much help when the final battle between Snow’s Last Girl and the killer takes place, but then again the actress and the makers of the film insist this isn’t a slasher.. So the dichotomy between what these people are saying their film is, and what the actual movie shapes up to be during a viewing, at least provides for a bit of tension.. Because Prom Night itself certainly does not..

It desperately tries to establish some semblance of tension by using every scary cliche in the book, and even has the gall to directly reference the classic Halloween by having her take refuge in the bedroom cupboard among clothes hangers..

The concerning part about the film is that the script took five years and four writers to bring it to the screen.. Given the end result, one has to wonder what they spent that time actually doing, as Prom Night is nothing more than poor imitation of what a horror film, or film in general, should be..

One of the final points as to how this film insults its audience’s intelligence is the bone - jarringly moronic ways the victims die.. One victim, being chased by Richard, ends up breaking a heel and falling down a flight of stairs.. She rather lamely ends up stuck in an empty, unfinished part of the hotel and practically kills herself tripping over paint cans.. Finally, she makes the brilliant move to run backwards and right toward the killer.. It’s comical enough to be a scene out of Scary Movie, but not a legitimately scary film, and it ends up leaving the audience laughing ( As many did in the theater I saw it in ).. I give Prom Night 0.5 out of 5..