Killers Ruin Proms

Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen have really bad luck on Prom Night, the influential 1980 slasher film. This is not to say it's a good movie, it's hilariously bad, but it has a few surprising qualities.

Leslie Nielsen gets top billing though he's barely in it. This was one of his last attempts at a non-comedic role. It's impossible to take him seriously. I can watch him in Forbidden Planet and take him seriously but he looked so different in the '50s and, anyway, the movie's good enough to overcome any associations that might come to mind when I see his face. Prom Night's not that good so, whenever Nielsen's onscreen, I just see Frank Drebin. His comedic performances are so deadpan that his face at rest seems to be a joke.



But, like I said, he's barely in the movie. He disappears entirely in the third act. Mostly it's the black ski masked killer picking off the high school students who accidentally killed a little girl when they were in elementary school. This seems like a Stephen King plot element though I'm not sure King had written any stories like that yet by 1980.

Jamie Lee Curtis is fine as the lead though she's not targeted by the killer at all. Instead, she gets a hilariously anachronistic disco dance scene apparently intended to capitalise on the popularity of Saturday Night Fever.



The kills seem like unintended parodies. One girl is chased by the killer throughout the school during the prom. She runs from the killer in a sequence that goes on for what seems like at least five minutes. All the while, you can hear the music from the prom but somehow she's trapped in a vast portion of the school with all the doors locked and totally isolated from any place occupied by other human beings.

It's competently shot and cheesy fun, to be sure. Prom Night is available on The Criterion Channel.