PROM NIGHT (1980)
Article 3255 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-18-2010
Posting Date: 7-13-2010
Directed by Paul Lynch
Featuring Leslie Nielsen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Stevens
Country: Canada
What it is: Slasher movie

When a children’s game goes awry and causes the death of one of the players, the other four, fearful they may go to jail, make a pact to keep it a secret. Several years later, the children have become teenagers and are attending the prom. However, there is a maniac on the loose who knows of the accident and who has targeted them for death…

The opening scene with the children’s game is fairly decent, and the initial premise that drives the plot at the beginning is also not bad. Unfortunately, the movie gets caught up in too many subplots, red herrings, and extraneous characters, so that the killings don’t start until two-thirds of the movie have passed. From then on, it’s the usual compendium of slasher cliches, further marred by the fact that much of the action is too dark to make out. All in all, it’s just another slasher film.