Retro Review: Prom Night (1980)

The second of Jamie Lee Curtis' trio of 1980 follow-ups designed to cash in on her scream queen breakthrough two years prior in Halloween, Prom Night is a decent, enjoyable little slasher romp. Certainly not the groundbreaker and earthshaker that John Carpenter's aforementioned classic is, but really, that's a very unfair comparison for just about any slasher flick. Unfortunately, Prom Night suffers a bit for following in the footsteps of Halloween, but if you enjoy vintage slashers, then it delivers the goods.

Jamie Lee is dependable as always in the role of Kim, one of a group of high schoolers who must live with the accidental death of one of their pals (and Kim's sister) some six years previously. However, there's a ski-masked, glass-shard wielding lunatic on the loose with some horrible telephone etiquette, and he/she doesn't seem anywhere near as willing to let it go.

Surprisingly, the acting for most of the "teenage" characters is probably a cut above what you'll find in Halloween. I've often remarked about the Debbie Does Dallas-level performances of the pseudo-adolescents in Carpenter's film (Ms. Curtis excepted, of course), and in this one area I will declare that Prom Night has it over its generally superior inspiration film. As for the usual gang of bumbling incompetent grown-ups one finds in a movie like this, what can I say? It's certainly always a hoot to watch a pre-Naked Gun Leslie Nielsen play it straight, that's for sure.

There are red herrings galore--almost to a fault--but the central plot thread of the movie does deliver some chills, even if it takes a bit to get going. The killer is quite creepy, although the big identity reveal at the end always has me asking, "OK, and...?"

Even more so than Halloween or Friday the 13th, Prom Night is very much of its time. I find you have to put yourself in the mindset of the era, when a steady stream of slasher and exploitation sleaze was being fed to local cinemas like a pipeline of awesomeness. There's a certain hazy, hyper-real quality to the way it's all shot, as if someone toweled their forehead, wiped it off on the camera lens, and left it that way for the duration of the movie.

And just in case you didn't realize when this movie was made, there's the infamous disco prom scene. Perhaps it makes me a smarmy post-modern ironist, but I absolutely love the fact that the entire film stops dead so that Jamie Lee and company can engage in a slick, choreographed disco number, compete with Martin Scorsese rotating camera. You can keep the throat ripping, this is by far my favorite moment in Prom Night.

Yes, it's derivative and follows a certain slasher formula, but so were so many other highly enjoyable films of the era. In fact, many would argue that that's what made them so great, their methodical exploration of a certain expected series of tropes, and the manner in which they added something just a little different or new--a nuance her or there. Yes, the shadow of Halloween hangs over the whole thing, but, for example, I also couldn't help but notice the strong influence of another recent horror hit, Carrie--a film totally outside the slasher tradition. That, in itself, was an interesting twist.

The script, by future soap writer Robert Guza Jr. and William Gray, is certainly a by-the-numbers affair, but it knows how to get the proper reaction, in the proper places. Gray, in particular, had just come off scripting The Changeling, a film whose power hinges on its ability to generate psychological terror.

Liverpudlian director Paul Lynch may not have been at the level of a Carpenter (well, 1980-era Carpenter, at least), but he knows the basics of keeping a viewer engaged, which is all that's required with a potboiler plot such as this. It's not about reinventing the wheel here, and Lynch is up to the task of delivering a solid slasher flick. Fascinating trivia department: Lynch would go to quite the genre TV career, directing episodes of Beauty and the Beast, The Twilight Zone, Ray Bradbury Theater, Dark Shadows, The Outer Limits, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Xena, Sliders, and both Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

All in all, Prom Night is undeniably a product of the post-Halloween slasher craze, but certainly one of the better ones. If you're a fan of the subgenre, it's got everything you're looking for, wrapped up in a beautifully garish Carter Era bow.

* Thanks to the ravishing Marilyn Merlot for suggesting this week's Retro Review. If you have a suggestion, drop me a line!

* * * * * * * * * *

For those who are oh-so-eagerly waiting to find out the winners for the 2009 Cyber Horror Awards, stay tuned. The next post here on the Vault will be just such an announcement. In the meantime, check out Cinefantastique Online's Wonder Award nominations, announced today. Unlike the CHAs, which focus strictly on horror movies, the Wonders go across-the-board for horror, science fiction and fantasy. It's quite an interesting line-up, and I was honored to be asked to participate.

The Many Faces of Jamie Lee Curtis

Happy Halloween from The Vault of Horror...

Special thanks to 1twistedmind for the suggestion!

Retro Review: Halloween (1978)

"I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the Devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil."

What more appropriate time to take a special look at John Carpenter's masterwork than this week, right? I don't know about you, but around this time of year, I pretty much walk around with that iconic theme music playing constantly in my head. And "The Shape", Michael Myers? A movie monster that can hold his own with the best of 'em.

The original Halloween spawned a huge movement, an explosion of slasher flicks about mindless killers, masked or otherwise--with Friday the 13th being the most obvious copycat of the bunch. Yet just as decades of rock bands have tried in vain to be Led Zeppelin, so does Halloween stand head and shoulders above any of the wannabes that came later (including its own sequels).

Unlike the majority of schlocky slashers, Halloween contains a mind-wrenching level of suspense, and very little gore. It's direct inspiration seems to be Hitchcock more than anything else, as can most obviously be seen thanks to the name of Michael's nemesis, Sam Loomis, a moniker lifted directly from Psycho. We also have, in the lead role of Laurie Strode, one Jamie Lee Curtis, daughter of Psycho's Marion Crane, a.k.a. Janet Leigh.

Along with co-writer and paramour Debra Hill, Carpenter crafted a fine tale whose impact should not be allowed to diminish because of all the inferior stuff that came after it. The Shape is absolutely terrifying by simple virtue of the fact that he is faceless, unknowable evil. This is one of the reasons why Carpenter's original outshines Rob Zombie's competent remake--Michael's utter lack of humanity.

As his counterpoint, we have the intense and commanding Donald Pleasance as the doctor who knows the murderer better than anyone else. The stage-trained British thespian Pleasance brought a respectability and gravitas to the film, and his is far and away the finest dramatic performance in the picture. He almost serves as a Greek chorus, doing nothing more than warning the other characters and the audience of the danger that's in store. In fact, his only action occurs in the climax of the movie.

Jamie Lee Curtis originates the concept of the "final girl" in the role that made her a star--the virginal Laurie. She is the epitome of the scream queen, evincing purity, evoking vulnerability, and putting over the abject terror that surrounds her. Yet in a twist which would forever define this type of role, she finds the strength within herself to face up to the monster. It's powerful stuff to this day.

That said, it needs to be pointed out that the majority of the rest of the acting in this flick is right about at '70s porno levels. I was surprised, in fact, after my recent re-viewing of the original F13, to find that for the most part,the young people in that movie were a cut above, acting-wise. P.J. Soles and rest of Michael's future victims are clumsy and broad in their performances, but we forgive them for it, because the tableau in which Carpenter has placed them is so powerful that it doesn't even matter.

It's all about the technique here. Carpenter and his cinematographer, future Speilberg and Zemeckis favorite Dean Cundey, craft some amazing sequences, most famously the opening POV shot that pulls you in right from the word go and informs you that this is no ordinary teenager slice-and-dice. And in a taut suspense film like this, due credit must also be given to the guys in the cutting room--Carpenter's editors Charles Bornstein and Tommy Lee Wallace (later director of Halloween III) deserve some recognition for this veritable symphony of nail-biting fear.

More than a person, Michael is a force of nature, the embodiment of not so much what I would call "evil" perhaps, as a completely amoral sociopathy. There is no anger or hatred within The Shape (another misstep of Zombie's); he simply exists to end the lives of others. Almost the Grim Reaper himself. The mask, that brilliant touch infamously crafted from one of Captain Kirk, presents us with a truly blank, empty killer. He is an entity, coming and going at will, virtually impervious to physical harm. (I always wondered whether or not it was wise for Carpenter & Hill to have him drive a car, as this implied a certain level of higher reasoning. Still, it does make for a bizarre and unsettling image, doesn't it?)

By synthesizing Hitchcock and crossing him with the '70s grindhouse aesthetic, Carpenter was able to create what might even be called the "purest" horror film of the modern era--which in turn set in motion a wave of influence which we are still feeling. Some would even call it the greatest horror movie of all time, as can be evidenced by its number-one ranking by the "Cyber-Horror Elite". I sincerely hope that reading this has put a lot of you in the mood to relive this immortal classic--hurry up, before the season is passed. Watch it one more time.