Movie Review: Prom Night

    

Prom Night
2008, 88mins, PG-13
Director: Nelson McCormick
Writer; J.S Cardone
Cast includes: Brittany Snow, Dana Davis, Jessica Troup, Scott Porter, Kelly Blatz, Collins Pennie, Idris Elba, Johnathon Schaech
Release Date: 11th April 2008

Few people go into a film looking to be bored, to be shown something they’ve seen before and done with less edge and quality. So if you’ve ever seen Halloween, Friday The 13th or A Nightmare On Elm Street you need not bother with Prom Night a loose remake of an already dubious 1980’s commodity because you can be assured you’ve seen every little idea in its head done in the past only much better.

As a general rule I don’t pass judgment on remakes before I’ve seen them, people forget that John Carpenters wonderful The Thing is a remake and to assure you that I don’t always follow the critical consensus on such matters I adored the 2006 revamp of The Omen. However with its generic plot, fluffy shots and PG-13 rating Prom Night has virtually nothing going for it, as a picture it is poorly directed with little evidence of skill or talent whilst in the large cast only one player makes anything resembling an impact.

Donna (Brittany Snow) is a teenager with a past, at the age of 15 a teacher named Mr.Fenton who obsessed over her attacked her family, her mother, father and brother died whilst by pure luck she made it out as the lone survivor. The teacher in question was captured and placed in a high security prison far away from Donna, so as the young girl could get back to grips with life. Fast forward a few years and Donna has made alot of progress now living with other family and about to embark on the night of her life: Prom. Things start well as she and her friends get into the spirit of the evening, but things are about to make a turn for the worst when it transpires that Donnas obsessive fan has broken out of jail and made it into the area. As the police led by Detective Winn (Idris Elba) try to unearth the killer before it’s too late, Donna’s friends are taken down one by one by Mr. Fenton so as she can be all his.

The performances in Prom Night are all pretty terrible, in the lead Brittany Snow displays why she isn’t anything to write home about in a world of young performers like Shia LaBeouf and Ellen Page. Snow simply acts out the same old “damsel in distress” routine indeed at times the character looks scared even when she has no reason to be. The audience never connects with Donna as a character thanks to Snow’s formulaic and wooden performance thus in many ways rendering the film pointless. As the killer Mr. Fenton Jonathon Schaech is even worse, he packs absolutely zero menace into his acting simply assuming that a blank stare is intimidating enough to unnerve the audience. Without a respectable killer or heroine this is one screenplay that was never going to get close to success, and thanks to Schaech and Snow it’s dead in the water. Support from the younger performers playing Donna’s buddies is largely woeful but a kind word must be spared for Dana Davis as Lisa. Davis who appeared in the second series of Heroes has no better a part than anyone else but at least attempts to give her character a bit of fire and life. She is easily the most interesting player in the whole farce, purely because the actress doesn’t sleep walk her way through the picture. Finally as detective Winn Idris Elba simply looks bored and frustrated with being stuck in such a rancid effort.

Slasher fans are going to be highly annoyed by how predictable and blood free Prom Night is, the PG-13 rating disallows the film any chance at verve or edge simply plumping for kiddie friendly and ineffective scares. Gore isn’t present in anywhere near sufficient enough amounts to attract those who have made torture porn such a fruitful genre in recent years and McCormick never conjures up a worthwhile slice of tension. In many ways Prom Night could be viewed as the textbook way to make a bad horror film, having it pack nothing that even borders on frightening.

Visually the film looks like it was pumped out of some sort of MTV assembly line; it’s glossy in the most irritating and unsatisfying way. The actual prom sequences are so glazed and pack such an airbrushed look that the viewers eyes might actually begin to hurt and McCormick seems to think that the taking down the lighting a notch will make the death scenes spooky. In fairness there is one moment where the film manages to throw together an effective scare setting as Dana Davis is stalked through a room with plastic drapes, but in practice McCormick’s boring direction wastes the opportunity.

The film went to no.1 at the US Box-Office which says sadly so much about what we are willing to accept as mainstream popular culture. Prom Night is devoid of ideas or even basic entertainment value yet it’s now made enough cash to ensure other uninspired and unoriginal horror pictures of the same nature are pumped out at a fast and furious rate. When people grow up watching pap like this at the multiplex and refuse to return to classics like Halloween because they’re “to old” it makes me wonder what the future of horror and indeed cinema will be like, even the undemanding are going to be unimpressed and without fans who’s going to support this industry? Films like Prom Night are so lifeless they endanger the future of the medium as a whole and if that is not a criticism enough, I no longer know what is.