Rating of
1/4
Review - Prom Night (2008)
Delorted - wrote on 04/19/08
There's nothing a hormone-driven teenager gets more excited about than her senior prom. You buy the dress, you wear the corsage, and in the case of Donna Keppel, played by Brittany Snow, you spend the night trying to dodge a psychotic pedophile teacher who's slashing up your friends.
"Prom Night" follows Donna on the biggest night of her high school career (y'know, other than that graduation thing), while a teacher that once lusted for her, played by Johnathan Schaech, murders her friends one-by-one to get to her. It's never explained why exactly he does this, other than out of rage or something. He just kills to kill I guess. At any rate, he won't stop until Donna is all his.
From the very beginning the movie is nothing more than another generic slasher flick. What's even more pathetic is that it's a =rip-off= of a generic slasher flick. The only plot is the background story, most of the actual film just being senseless murders. I'd be okay with this if the movie was entertaining, but the killings are anything but thrilling. They tried so hard to not allow any subtext or plot development into the story. It's as if they intentionally made a slasher that had no point, most likely just for the money.
In most slashers, the villain can appear anywhere. They'll be a couple feet away from their victim, the victim will turn around, and they're behind a pillar or something. This movie takes that idea to the extreme, having the killer practically teleporting to other rooms. The victims, of course, have the opposite effect, where they can't get away even in the simplest circumstances.
I think there are two things that could have made the movie more thrilling: 1) More character development and 2) if they had made it a psychological thriller rather than a pointless slasher (yes, I know it's a remake, but remakes can be changed; look at Rear Window and Disturbia). If they had put a little more thought and a lot less uninteresting murders into this film, it probably wouldn't have been so bad.
Acting: 7/10
Writing: 1/10
Video/Editing: 2/10
Audio/Music: 3/10
Entertainment: 2/10
Final Score: 3/10
