It seems the stream of horror movie remakes aren't coming to an end any time soon, with Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Evil Dead amongst many others, either planned or in production. Hollywood, evidently, has run out of ideas for scary new material. So how does Prom Night fair in relation to other contemporary remakes?
A remake in name only of the Jamie-Lee Curtis-staring 1980 slasher, Prom Night is written by J.S. Cardone, a man so inept at constructing original and believable characters that even Uwe Boll probably wouldn't direct one of his scripts. The story follows a group of seen-them-all-before teens on their senior prom night, led by Hairspray's Brittany Snow, as they are stalked and slashed by their former high-school teacher-turned obsessed psychopath. The story however proves of little significance because it is both insipid and inane. There have been plenty of horror films with ludicrous plots before - see Dario Argento's back catalogue - but those films always had something else to back them up. Prom Night has nothing. Characters spew lines like they grew up in a small dark room analysing expository dialogue from Friday the 13th sequels (the bad ones at that).
For a post-Saw horror film Prom Night is surprisingly tame - there's no sex or nudity and bare-minimum blood. The 15 certificate also comes as a shock, as there’s little here that would amount to anything above a 12 rating. Its intended audience seems to be teenage girls looking for a suitable, less-bloody alternative to Halloween. A cheap scare on a sleepover perhaps? Whatever the case, anything remotely resembling tension and suspense is wasted because in almost every scare-scene there's a sense that we've seen it all before; the anticipated reflection in the bathroom mirror, the killer disappearing behind a passing vehicle in the street, the point-of-view shots, they are all here. Every frame of Prom Night has been recycled from previous, better films. Nelson McCormick's direction is uninspired and instantly forgettable, which is a shame considering he’ worked on some of America's most critically-acclaimed shows (The West Wing, Prison Break, Nip/Tuck). That said, he has little to work from with Cardone's tired script. If The Fog and The Omen were never redone, then Prom Night would certainly be the worst of the lot.
A remake in name only of the Jamie-Lee Curtis-staring 1980 slasher, Prom Night is written by J.S. Cardone, a man so inept at constructing original and believable characters that even Uwe Boll probably wouldn't direct one of his scripts. The story follows a group of seen-them-all-before teens on their senior prom night, led by Hairspray's Brittany Snow, as they are stalked and slashed by their former high-school teacher-turned obsessed psychopath. The story however proves of little significance because it is both insipid and inane. There have been plenty of horror films with ludicrous plots before - see Dario Argento's back catalogue - but those films always had something else to back them up. Prom Night has nothing. Characters spew lines like they grew up in a small dark room analysing expository dialogue from Friday the 13th sequels (the bad ones at that).
For a post-Saw horror film Prom Night is surprisingly tame - there's no sex or nudity and bare-minimum blood. The 15 certificate also comes as a shock, as there’s little here that would amount to anything above a 12 rating. Its intended audience seems to be teenage girls looking for a suitable, less-bloody alternative to Halloween. A cheap scare on a sleepover perhaps? Whatever the case, anything remotely resembling tension and suspense is wasted because in almost every scare-scene there's a sense that we've seen it all before; the anticipated reflection in the bathroom mirror, the killer disappearing behind a passing vehicle in the street, the point-of-view shots, they are all here. Every frame of Prom Night has been recycled from previous, better films. Nelson McCormick's direction is uninspired and instantly forgettable, which is a shame considering he’ worked on some of America's most critically-acclaimed shows (The West Wing, Prison Break, Nip/Tuck). That said, he has little to work from with Cardone's tired script. If The Fog and The Omen were never redone, then Prom Night would certainly be the worst of the lot.
Prom Night is directed by Nelson McCormick and is written by J.S. Cardone. The film stars Brittany Snow, Scott Porter, Johnathan Schaech and Idris Elba. The certificate is 15.
The trailer can be seen HERE.
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