Welcome to "Rivers Of Gore!" I figured I'd start things out with the best of high-school blood-letting, and my all-time favorite is PROM NIGHT (1980). It was a guaranteed success - released a couple of months after the original FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980) and starring that era's reigning 'Scream Queen,' Jamie Lee Curtis of HALLOWEEN (1978). The difference here is that perky Jamie Lee isn't on the killer's hit list this time around. She and her plucky friends, all students at Alexander Hamilton Senior High School, are excited about the prom. Wouldn't you be thrilled too if your prom's theme was 'Disco Madness?' Anyways, it seems that someone is out for revenge at the prom. A masked maniac knows a 'secret' kept by Wendy (Eddie Benton), Nick (Casey Stevens), Kelly (Mary Beth Rubens) and Jude (Joy Thompson) - it just so happens that the night of the prom is the anniversary of their deadly 'secret.' Throats are gouged with jagged shards of glass and heads are lopped off with an axe. The identity of the killer comes after a brawl with Jamie Lee and Nick on the blinking disco dance floor. While it's easy to dismiss a lot of these films as mindless teenkill pics, PROM NIGHT at least has a coherent storyline, a lightweight mystery, and an actual motive for the killings. Victims aren't just lined up as mindless fodder for the special effects team; the characters in PROM NIGHT are well-developed and acted by a fresh-faced cast, most notably Benton (a.k.a. Anne-Marie Martin) as the wonderfully evil Wendy and Thompson as the somewhat nerdy Jude. Three in-name only sequels followed - HELLO MARY LOU:PROM NIGHT II (1987), PROM NIGHT III:THE LAST KISS (1989) and PROM NIGHT IV:DELIVER US FROM EVIL (1992).
For more horrendously hellish high-school antics, I highly recommend HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (1981).
No comments:
Post a Comment