Prom Night,
Everything is allright...!

"There's a special night in the lives of all of us. A night to be beautiful...to be desirable. A night we can break all the rules and make our own - Prom Night. Everyone at Hamilton High is getting ready for Prom Night. It's a day of rehearsals, arrangements, final preparations, and last minute phone calls... They're too old for games, but someone still wants to play.

Tonight, someone has come to the Prom...alone. Someone who watches in the silent corridors. Someone who waits until no one can help. PROM NIGHT. If you're not back by midnight, you won't be coming home!"

A couple of kids are playing a charming game which is a combination of tag and hide and go seek, and in which they chant "the killer is coming." Nick (Brock Simpson), Wendy (Leslie Scott), Jude (Karen Forbes), and Kelly (Joyce Kite) have the run of an old abandoned convent.

Alex (Dean Bosacki) and his sisters Robin (Tammy Bourne) and Kim (Debbie Greenfield) pass by on their way to school that morning and see their friends playing. Kim has left one of her books at home and tells her siblings to go on.

Alex is about to walk on to their classes but Robin wants to stay and play with the others. Her brother tells Robin that the other kids don't want her in their game and leaves her behind.

The young girl enters the old building and searches for her friends. She finds Nick hiding and he calls out for the other girls to come after Robin. The three girls join Nick and begin taunting the frightened girl, yelling "kill, kill" and "the killers are coming!"

Robin tries to get away and runs through the convent, but the group are relentless. She walks backwards up a hallway as they're teasing her, and then climbs onto a window sill. The window breaks and Robin falls to her death below.

The kids are startled, and although Nick wants to go get help, Wendy convinces her friends to make a pact to never tell anyone. They ride away on their bicycles, but someone we can't identify sees the dead little girl. Robin's body is found later that night.

Her father Mr. Hammond (Leslie Nielson) tries to comfort Mrs. Hammond (Antoinette Bower) at the scene. The police believe that the girl was the victim of a sexual attack and that she resisted. They tell Mr. Hammond that they've picked someone up for questioning.

Six years later on the exact same day, Robin's family visits her grave. Mr. and Mrs. Hammond and their now teenage children Kim (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Alex (Michael Tough), are still consumed with grief over the girl's death. At breakfast, Kim and Alex discuss the prom which is to be held that night. Kim tells her brother to ask Jude to go with him.

Alex isn't interested and reminds Kim that he's in charge of the sound system for the dance. Their dad is the principal at Alexander Hamilton High and he drives them to the school. They see Sykes (Robert Silverman) cutting the hedges on the school lawn.

Alex refers to him as a wacko and Kim says that the man is always watching her and the other girls. Mr. Hammond says they guy's been checked out and is not a threat.

That morning, Jude (Joy Thompson) gets a phone call from someone who says "can you come out to play tonight? I'll see you at the prom." It's the first of a series of calls some students will get that morning, and each time, the caller crosses off the person's name on a list.

Jude thinks it's some sort of obscene caller and leaves to go to school. While walking, a guy named Seymour (Sheldon Rybowski) offers her a ride in his van and she accepts.

Kelly (Marybeth Rubens) gets a phone call from the same person. He tells her "it's been a long time. Tonight it's my turn." Kelly thinks it's her boyfriend Drew (Jeff Wincott) playing a prank and goes outside to look for him.

When she returns, Drew has entered the house through the back door and is ready to take her to school. She tells him she's shaken by the horrible voice she heard.

Nick (Casey Stevens) is getting ready for class. His father, Mr. McBride (George Touliatos) is a lieutenant with the police department. As they leave together that morning, Nick tells his Dad that he plans to take Kim to the prom. The phone rings but he decides not to answer it.

At the station house, Lt. McBride thinks back to the night little Robin was murdered. He remembers how overzealous the cops were in trying to apprehend a local sex offender who they thought was the perpetrator.

During the chase, the suspect's car overturned and he was set on fire. He was taken to a hospital where's he's been ever since until now. He's escaped, taking a nurse with him.

McBride calls in Dr. Fairchild (David Gardner), who treated the guy after the accident to try and get some insight into the man. The lieutenant is worried that the suspect might be headed back to town. Just then, he gets a call telling him that the nurse has been found in the same building Robin met her death in.

Lt. McBride and the Dr. Fairchild examine the body, which has been mutilated. Fairchild talks McBride into not telling anyone that the same person they think killed Robin is loose. He believes that because the convict is disfigured from his burns, he won't get very far and will be picked up before night falls.

There's one more call the stranger makes. Wendy (Eddie Benton) picks up the phone and hears "do you still like to play games?" With wit and style, she answers "get lost Lou!" and drives off in her Corvette to school. Note to the uninitiated: (Attitude + Corvette = BITCH!)

At school, we're treated to the usual classy teenage behavior...Kelly telling Drew to "save it" when he tries to kiss her, Jude excitedly telling Kim and Vicki (Pita Oliver) that she has a date to the prom, Lou's jealousy over Nick taking Kim to the dance, Wendy trying to win Nick back and kissing him in front of the others, etc.

In the gym, as Kim studiously attempts to practice her disco dance moves (in vain), Wendy tells her the only reason Nick is her date is because they're king and queen of the prom. Wendy leaves her ex-friend with these sage words of advice:

"It's not who you go with honey, it's who takes you home."

In the cafeteria, Lou approaches Kim wearing a ski mask and tries to kiss her. Alex intervenes on behalf of his sister and punches Lou in the face. The two guys are taken to Principal Hammond's office. Lou is suspended and the black skimask is confiscated.

During lunch, Kim goes for a walk with Nick and tells him that she and her family are upset because it's the anniversary of Robin's death.

Nick is thinking back to that day, and just as he's about to confess, the schoolbell rings. Wendy is having lunch with Lou at a local drive-in diner. She convinces him to do something at the Prom to get back at the school. (Carrie anyone?)

After the break, some of the girls are at tennis practice. Vicki is feeling frisky and moons Sykes the weirdo. Later, Wendy finds her yearbook picture in her locker with a tear in it. Kim and and Kelly are talking about losing their virginity when they hear glass break. They go to see what happened and find that someone has shattered a mirror and taken a large shard of glass.

Peeking out at the parking lot, they don't see anyone nearby. As she's leaving school to go home, Kim thinks someone is following her in the hallway.

Sykes is nearby cleaning up the broken glass in the locker room, while Jude and Kelly find their yearbook photos torn in their lockers.

At home, Kim gets ready for the big night. Mrs. Hammond is nervous because of the day's significance, and she can't find her lipstick on top of it. She and Mr. Hammond leave to the prom together, while Kim waits until Nick picks her up. Meanwhile, Wendy gets a lift from Lou and three of his loser friends, much to her annoyance.

Hamilton High is eerily dark and deserted that night, except for the gym. That's where the action is and the disco is cranked high. (Apparently, the school had a big enough budget to install the dance floor from Saturday Night Fever)

Standing nearby and keeping a watchful eye is Lt. McBride. Kim is dancing with her father when Wendy shows up. Wanting to one-up her nemesis, she grabs Nick and they engage in a full three-minute disco marathon while the title song plays. (You gotta see it to believe it!)

Afterwards, Kim, Jude, and Vicki go into the ladies room to freshen up. Kelly joins them and is nervous because Drew wants to get up her skirt. To which Jude gives this advice: "It's really no big deal Kelly. It's like getting, uh,...a shot!" Shakespeare coined love not better...

For some reason, this makes Kelly feel better about the situation, and she and her boyfriend go off to the locker room to make out.

However, Kelly gets cold feet about going too far and Drew blows her off. Crying and trying to compose herself, Kelly buttons up her blouse. A killer in a ski mask comes up from behind and slices her neck.

Jude is outside making out with Seymour in his van. He steps out to go relieve himself, while the killer is lurking in the bushes. Jude joins him and they continue kissing on the grass. They hear someone nearby and go back to the van to smoke some pot.

While Jude is leaning against the doors, the killer suddenly opens them and stabs her in the neck. Seymour tries to drive away, but the masked guy grabs onto the vehicle making it swerve and go over a cliff. It explodes but the killer jumps out in time.

Wendy is next. While in the ladies room reapplying her make-up, the lights go out. The killer strikes at her with the ax and barely misses.

She manages to escape and runs down the darkened corriders. She hides in a classroom and then in a car in the school autoshop, before the killer finds her.

Wendy hits him with a broom and seeks refuge in a storage closet. She's temporarily safe until she sees blood dripping on the floor near her. Looking up, she sees Kelly's body and screams. The killer opens the door and repeatedly strikes her with the ax.

Lt. McBride gets what he thinks is good news: his suspect was apprehended 50 miles away from the school. He decides the school is safe, but just as he's about to go home, Sykes appears and starts yelling that a killer is loose. McBride quickly whisks him away.

The prom ceremony is about to begin, so Kim and Nick go backstage. They're at different stage exits, so Kim isn't able to see Lou in action. His two friends knock Nick out and Lou puts the crown on his head. The music stops and as the king and queen are about to go onstage, the killer strikes Lou.

Lou's decapitated head rolls out onto the walkway. The students and faculty are horrified and there's a stampede to get out of the school. Kim finds Nick and tries to help him to safety. Just then the killer confronts them.

He attacks Nick and they struggle on the ground. Kim grabs the ax and when she's sure her boyfriend is out of the way, she strikes the killer in the head. When the still masked killer turns around, she's able to get a good look at his eyes. They're quite familiar to her and she gets a sick feeling when she realizes she just struck her own brother Alex.

Alex stumbles outside of the school and Lt. McBride points a gun at him. Kim runs out and tells the officer not to shoot. She bends down, takes the mask off her brother and cradles his head in her arms. He's wearing smeared lipstick on his face. Before he dies, Alex cries out that he saw what happened six years ago. "They did it," he says. In a flashback, we see the young boy standing over his sister's broken body.

Prom Night is noteworthy because the killer actually has a reasonable motive...one, in fact, which most of us can relate to. Revenge against those responsible for his little sister's death makes the killer in this one more sympathetic than most villians in this subgenre.

Although in some ways the movie is a slasher-by-the-numbers film, it's redeemed by solid acting and slick production values. Among the leads, Eddie Benton as the elder Wendy is a real find. She's mean (even to her mother), jealous, incorrigible and...sexy.

Like Nancy Allen in Carrie, Benton really lights up the screen whenever she's around. There are some genuinely good murder sequences in Prom Night, and Wendy's chase scene and murder is one of the best.

Her temporary hideout in a car in the high school's auto department really encapsulates the general mood and rhythm that makes these early '80s slashers so energetic and appealing to us.

Of course, this movie is yet another Jamie Lee Curtis star production. She's terrific, especially in the final scene. The moment when she looks into her brother's eyes is actually very sad and poignant for a horror movie.

Frankly, Curtis could do no wrong in our eyes at this point in her career...she could have read from the phone books and we would still love it! The plot device of having the killer make threatening phone calls to his victims is also quite effective.

Anchor Bay has put this title out on DVD and it's much better than their video version of it. Only two complaints: as with most of the company's releases, there aren't any extra features other than the previously mentioned trailer, and the disc is divided into only nine chapters. Still, it's worth it. This June, watch Prom Night and remember a time when students killing other students in a school could only happen in the movies...