With Scream Queens first season in full swing and the always awesome Jamie Lee Curtis one of the stars of the show, I thought it would be fun to kick things off by going back and watching one of her lesser known 1980’s scream queen era flicks: Prom Night.
This film has all the cliche’s that the genre became known for:
- Homicidal maniac killing teenagers with inefficient weapons like an axe or glass shard. Check.
- Promiscuous teenagers who smoke joints after sex. Check.
- Clueless police force who is always two steps behind the killer. Check.
- And of course, screaming teenage girls running from the killer.
So what, if anything new does Prom Night bring to the table? Well, first of all, in 1980, this type of stuff wasn’t as much a cliche. Second, there’s a ton of disco scenes with full on dance-off’s. You don’t see that every day in a slasher flick. There’s also a really eerie (although pretty slow) opening with children being cruel to a young girl that I hadn’t seen in another slasher before.
There’s an absolutely hilarious (unintentionally) sequence where a fat kid with a van tries to drive away while the killer attacks him. The action is bizarrely staged and the whole thing makes no sense. Loved it.
Jamie Lee Curtis is especially great in this. Tons of charisma and owns every scene she’s in. I also liked how the camera cut away for the violence, just hearing it was way more effective. If you like slashers, this is worth a watch.