Let's get this out of the way:

Yes, this is a remake of the early 80's film with Jamie Lee Curtis. The original filmmakers are not credited. Despite the fact that this story has almost no relation to the other film, the facts are that there was a slasher film called Prom Night, that, no surprise, took place at a prom. If you have another film called Prom Night that is a slasher film that takes place at a prom, it's a remake, no matter the back story of the characters.

I don't know if it was intentional or not by the people that made this rendition so I won't speculate. But for those wondering, yes, it's a goddamn remake.

And it sucks.

Bad.

In a better movie, a real one, the villain in this film would've been pretty cool. Honestly. In fact, we follow him for most of the film. There's no mystery who he is, we see his face, we know his intent and his motives. The only "mystery" left is who lives and doesn't, which if you know anything about slashers (or have seen Scream) then you know what the outcome will be.

But I liked Schaech as the killer, at least on a base level. He doesn't talk, there are no corny one-liners from him, he just walks around and kills people that get in his way.

"Kills people." I should've put that in quotation marks. Because, well, it's PG-13, and we know what that means. Watered down garbage stabbings, kills behind shut doors, and about ten billion jump scares. One that involves a lamp! A lamp for crying out loud!

So like I said, in a real movie that had balls and was trying at all, Richard the killer would've stuck out a little between being on screen the whole time and not being corny.

What makes it worse is I just watched Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, which is a terrific send-up (but also kind of a love letter) to the slasher genre, and everything they talk about in that film is in this. As such it was even more painfully obvious how damn paint-by-numbers it was.

Another thing - with all the damn scandals going on with teachers having sex with their students, the film could've at least talked about it briefly. That's the core of the killer's motive, is he's all hot for this one student and the crazy dent in her head. But, of course, it's only used as a springboard for the basic plot.

I'm giving it two marks for having one kill that was funny as hell, and the fact that I enjoyed the killer a little. It's too bad they went the easy route to make money from the tweens that are, honestly, going to rush to see this crap and talk about how scary and original it is, because it had a chance to contribute to the sub-genre. As it stands, it's totally worthless and a waste of time.

Hide Full Review