| Prom Night | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Paul Lynch |
| Produced by | Peter R. Simpson Richard Simpson |
| Written by | William Gray Robert Guza, Jr. |
| Starring | Leslie Nielsen Jamie Lee Curtis Casey Stevens Anne-Marie Martin Michael Tough Robert A. Silverman |
| Music by | Paul Zaza Carl Zittrer |
| Cinematography | Robert C. New |
| Editing by | Brian Ravok |
| Distributed by | Avco Embassy Pictures (theatrical) Alliance Atlantis |
| Release date(s) | July 18, 1980 (US) September 12, 1980 (Canada) |
| Running time | 90 min. |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Budget | CAD$1,600,000 (estimated) |
| Box office | $14,796,236 [1] |
Prom Night is a 1980 Canadian horror film filmed in Canada and directed by Paul Lynch and starring Leslie Nielsen and Jamie Lee Curtis. The original music score is composed by Paul Zaza and Carl Zittrer.
The story concerns a group of high school seniors who are targeted by an unknown killer in revenge for their culpability in the accidental death of a young girl. The anniversary of the incident falls on their high school's prom night. The older sister of the dead girl is being crowned prom queen. Her brother is the disc jockey at the event.
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11-year-olds Wendy Richards, Jude Cunningham, Kelly Lynch and Nick McBride play hide and seek in an abandoned convent. 10-year-old Robin Hammond joins them but they start teasing her by repeating "Kill! Kill! Kill!". She backs into a window and falls onto panes of construction glass, killing her. The children make a pact not to tell anyone what happened, but a mysterious figure has apparently witnessed the event while a known rapist is blamed for Robin's death and arrested shortly.
Six years later Robin's family attend her memorial on the anniversary of her death. Robin's teenage sister and brother, Kim and Alex, are also preparing for the school prom to be held that evening. Their parents will also attend, as their father is the school principal.
Kelly, Jude and Wendy receive threatening phone calls, while Nick misses the call intended for him. Kim and her boyfriend Nick will attend the prom together. Jude is asked by goofy jokester Seymour "Slick" Crane who she meets by chance that morning. Kelly will go with her boyfriend Drew Shinnick. He is preoccupied with having sex with her that evening, despite her objections. Nick's ex-girlfriend, the beautiful but scheming Wendy, has no date so asks the school rebel, Lou Farmer. She devises a scheme with Lou to embarrass Nick and Kim.
In the change room after gym class, Kim and Kelly discover the locker room mirror severely cracked and a shard missing. The sex offender blamed for Robin's death has escaped and Lt. McBride, Nick's father, investigates. During the senior prom Kim and Nick perform a dance number to impress Wendy who had insisted Nick would be getting back with her after the prom. Kelly and Drew make out in the school changing room, but Kelly refuses to continue to full sex. Drew angrily leaves. As Kelly gets dressed, a masked killer slits her throat.
Jude and Slick have sex and smoke marijuana in his van outside school grounds. However, they are being watched by Kelly's killer, who kills Jude by stabbing her throat. Slick brawls with the killer while attempting to drive away. The killer escapes from the van as it tumbles off a cliff and explodes, crushing and burning Slick to death in the flaming wreckage. McBride, staking out the prom, is informed that the sex offender blamed for Robin's death has been caught. He is relieved and ends his scrutiny of the event.
Wendy is confronted by the killer in the bathroom and is chased through the school. After evading the killer several times she stumbles upon Kelly's body and, distracted, is hacked to death with an axe (offscreen). Kim and Nick prepare to be crowned prom king and queen. Wendy's plan is put into action by Lou and his lackeys who tie up Nick with Lou taking his crown and assuming his position back stage. Thinking he is Nick, the assailant sneaks up behind Lou with the axe and decapitates him.
Lou's head rolls onto the dance floor and sending the panicked partygoers fleeing in horror. Kim finds Nick and frees him. As they prepare to escape, they are confronted by the killer who attacks Nick. Kim eventually grabs the killer's axe and hits him on the head with it. As Kim and the killer stare at each other for a moment, Kim realizes who he really is. He runs outside where the police have arrived. As McBride tries to shoot, Kim stops him and the killer falls to the ground. Kim unmasks the killer, revealing Alex in make up, had witnessed Robin's death and dies in Kim's arms after he cries and tells Kim what happened to their sister just before the credits roll.
According to director Paul Lynch in the documentary Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (2006), he was having difficulty securing financing until Jamie Lee Curtis signed on. Once the film was shot, Paramount expressed interest in distributing the movie. However they only wanted to open it in 300 theaters whereas Avco Embassy Pictures offered to release it in 1200 theaters. As a result Avco released Prom Night. Paramount released another independent slasher film, Friday the 13th.
Composer(s): Carl Zittrer, Paul Zaza.
The Prom Night soundtrack is highly sought after, by fans of the film and disco fans alike. It was released only in Japan on LP and cassette. A 7 inch single of "All is Gone" b/w "Forever" was also released, however neither of these songs appears in the film. Many bootleg CD releases have also found their way onto the marketplace, but Prom Night has never been issued on CD. Some of the music used in the film was used in Canadian horror productions that Paul Zaza scored as well, 1981's Ghostkeeper and 1983's Curtains.[2] The Song "Prom Night" was featured in "Cabin Fever 2".
According to the producer of Prom Night, Eve Plumb [from television's The Brady Bunch] originally auditioned for the role of Kim Hammond. [3]
The film was originally released by Anchor Bay Entertainment on DVD on February 18, 1998, and was one of the company's first releases. This edition went out of print within a couple of years, and the film was nearly impossible to find on DVD. It was released again on DVD by Alliance Atlantis in March 2004, but the print used was from a worn-out VHS release, and was thus of very poor quality. Echo Bridge Entertainment re-released the film on DVD on September 4, 2007 in a high-quality, newly re-mastered print. Unfortunately, it features a PAL-NTSC transfer.
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