Prom Night (2008) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

U.S. 2008
Director: Nelson McCormick
Cast: Brittany Snow, Jonathan Schaech, Jessica Stroup, Idris Elba, Scott Porter, Ming-Na, Brianne Davis
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: April 11th 2008
Running Time: 1 hour 29 minutes

The Movie Review

Prom Night (2008) film still

Arrgghh....I'm too old for this!


PROM NIGHT (2008)
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
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Prom Night is an event that most of high school graduates are desperately trying to dress-to-kill to attend one of the most memorable time of their youth life. This is an event that usually would be filmed as a movie that belongs to the comedy genre or drama. But our movie here tries to present that event in a horror way. Nice concept. Although in 1980, there's already a movie with the same name that had been followed by three sequels, and the 1980's Prom Night had a more convincing reasoning behind all the killings that would remind you a lot on the famous I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Prom Night is definitely not an original slasher movie, but unfortunately it doesn't have anything novelty enough to give the movie a different touch and probably as the filmmakers effort to differ it from the original, The 2008 Prom Night gives a whole different reasoning behind all the killing. Different but ineffective.

Donna Keppel is one the unluckiest girl in the school. She gets the attention from her teacher alright, but an extreme attention from Richard Fenton. Richard's crush grows to become fully obsessed and eventually turns him into a psychopath that on a single night kills Donna's father, mother and her little brother.

Three years later, Donna who is now living with her aunt and uncle, is about to graduate and attend the prom night with her kind-hearted boyfriend Bobby. Donna also along with her two friends and their boyfriends are having a blast at the prom night. But her bad luck seems doesn't end completely since Richard Fenton is now on the loose and is back to get Donna no matter what happens.

The background for Richard Fenton's psychotic act is explained but it doesn't make us truly believe he would do such murders. It seems everything is half-baked. I don't know why he is so fond of the girl, or what is his deal to be that psychotic. Richard seems to be more of an upset person instead of a psycho. Thus this villain makes the villain in P2 (released in November 2007) less worse, while the villain in P2 is already one of the lamest villains in that year. Prom Night is emotionally not engaging, because there are no real characters in this horror film. We could feel that they're simply actors who merely just act and never through that kind of incident. Had they put more heart and soul in it, Prom Night would have been swell.

The enjoyable pace of this slasher flick is wasted by filling it with rudimentary scares, mainly boo scares dominated all over the film. Sooo many hall for suspense, but is left empty with cheesy lines and pathetic villain. Usually though, for the sake of enjoyment, I didn't nitpick any little flaws that I could easily overlook, but in Prom Night, even the music cue you in on where the scenes are going to pop out. Imagine this...there are five or six wardrobe and mirror scenes! And numerous boos scares for hitting the lamp, seeing someone, opening the door, et cetera, und so weiter, and so on.

Everything in this movie is a series of clichés or old stuffs. Honestly I don't care if a movie is full of old material as long as it's nicely executed. But if it's a bad movie, now that's what makes me repent my money that's lost to see this movie.

The director sometimes tries a tad too hard to achieve aesthetical looking scenes but ends up blowing it, like the one where the camera is circling around the chief inspector, and the shaking hands scene, and the dance scenes where it seems might falls to comedy romantic genre just like John Tucker Must Die where Brittany Snow also headlined it.

And as everything is going to be end nicely and casually for this hackneyed movie, voila it's not the end yet. The movie still spans itself into a couple of more tedious minutes that the audience has to pass through. If I were still at the high school and watching it with my friends, I would not hesitant to leave the theatre and go grab some pizza instead.

Prom Night would probably appeal to those of you who has never seen any slasher flick before as Prom Night obediently follows the regular slasher-by-the-numbers guidebook.

© iwan pranowo of Movielogy.com