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'Prom Night' a date with disaster
By AJ Chavar
Posted: 4/10/08, 10:58 PM EST Section: Splice
"Prom Night"
Starring: Brittany Snow, Johnathon Schaech
Directed by: Nelson McCormick
Rating: 1 star
Do not see "Prom Night."
Seriously, don't see it.
This 90-minute "movie" centers around high school senior Donna Keppel (Brittany Snow), and surprisingly enough, her prom.
But wait! There's a catch.
It turns out three years ago Donna witnessed her mother murdered by an insane, obsessed teacher (Johnathon Schaech as Richard Fenton) who was after Donna. He also killed the rest of her family, but she didn't seem to mind that as much.
The movie is predictable horror/slasher tripe. The "mirror trick" is overused (you know, the helpless female lead closes her cabinet mirror and the killer is suddenly there), and by overused, I mean more than five times. "Prom Night" goes for tons of cheap scares, using lamps, shower curtains and shadows to scare the pubescent main characters, but it doesn't work on the audience.
The audience reactions to the spooks did come in surround sound - not good when the main responses are laughs.
Volumes could be written about the magnitude of the film's awfulness. But it's possible to sum up in a sentence the depth of its dreadfulness: The movie was so predictable that the 8-year-old sitting next to me was shouting out what would happen next.
It's scary movie 101: if you see a bed, someone is under it. If you see detectives, they're incompetent, and if you see a mirror or a closet, guess what happens next?
The detectives were possibly the worst travesty in "Prom Night." It took them days to alert Donna's aunt and uncle to the murderer's escape from the insane asylum, and when charged with watching after Donna (the one person the killer really wants) the junior detective goes in the opposite direction.
All of the danger in this movie could have been avoided if Donna and her family were immediately informed of Fenton's escape. As a result, they could've kept her under police watch until the murderer was found. Instead, her uncle lets her attend prom - even after he finds out the killer's out there.
Starring: Brittany Snow, Johnathon Schaech
Directed by: Nelson McCormick
Rating: 1 star
Do not see "Prom Night."
Seriously, don't see it.
This 90-minute "movie" centers around high school senior Donna Keppel (Brittany Snow), and surprisingly enough, her prom.
But wait! There's a catch.
It turns out three years ago Donna witnessed her mother murdered by an insane, obsessed teacher (Johnathon Schaech as Richard Fenton) who was after Donna. He also killed the rest of her family, but she didn't seem to mind that as much.
The movie is predictable horror/slasher tripe. The "mirror trick" is overused (you know, the helpless female lead closes her cabinet mirror and the killer is suddenly there), and by overused, I mean more than five times. "Prom Night" goes for tons of cheap scares, using lamps, shower curtains and shadows to scare the pubescent main characters, but it doesn't work on the audience.
The audience reactions to the spooks did come in surround sound - not good when the main responses are laughs.
Volumes could be written about the magnitude of the film's awfulness. But it's possible to sum up in a sentence the depth of its dreadfulness: The movie was so predictable that the 8-year-old sitting next to me was shouting out what would happen next.
It's scary movie 101: if you see a bed, someone is under it. If you see detectives, they're incompetent, and if you see a mirror or a closet, guess what happens next?
The detectives were possibly the worst travesty in "Prom Night." It took them days to alert Donna's aunt and uncle to the murderer's escape from the insane asylum, and when charged with watching after Donna (the one person the killer really wants) the junior detective goes in the opposite direction.
All of the danger in this movie could have been avoided if Donna and her family were immediately informed of Fenton's escape. As a result, they could've kept her under police watch until the murderer was found. Instead, her uncle lets her attend prom - even after he finds out the killer's out there.
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