Prom Night (1980) poster
Movie title: Prom Night
Release Dates: Summer 1980
Tagline: "If you're not back by midnight... you are not coming home."
Prom Night (1980) is a Canadian / American Slasher Film.
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 six years earlier. The anniversary of the incident falls on their high school's prom night, when the older sister of the dead girl is being crowned prom queen.
Plot[]
" In 1974, 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 tries to join them, but they start teasing her by repeating "Kill! Kill! Kill!". Robin is backed towards a window from which she falls to her death. The children make a pact not to tell anyone what happened and keep the incident a secret, but after they leave a shadow falls across Robin's body. A known rapist is blamed for Robin's death and arrested.
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 from an unknown figure, while Nick ignores his ringing phone. Kim and Nick, whom she is dating, 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 despite her objections), Wendy, previously Nick's girlfriend, asks the school rebel, Lou Farmer with plans to embarrass Nick and Kim at prom.
In the change room after gym class, Kim and Kelly discover the locker room mirror severely cracked and a shard missing. The 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 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 is caught and murdered offscreen after she finds Kelly's body. 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 sending the 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 guns are raised Kim screams for the officers not to shoot. The killer is revealed to be Alex, who tearfully tells his sister that Jude, Kelly, Wendy and Nick were responsible for their sister's death, dying in Kim's arms as he cries Robin's name." - from wiki
Credits & Notes[]
| Directed by | Paul Lynch |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Peter R. Simpson Richard Simpson |
| Written by | William Gray |
| Starring | Leslie Nielsen |
| Music by | Paul Zaza
Carl Zittrer |
| Cinematography | Robert C. New |
| Editing by | Brian Ravok |
| Distributed by | Avco Embassy Pictures |
| Release date(s) | *July 18, 1980 (US, limited)
|
| Running time | 90 min. |
| Budget | 1,600,000 (estimated) |
| Box office | $14,796,236[1] |
- Jamie Lee Curtis starred in 2 other horror films from 1980, Terror Train & 'The Fog
- The Prom has a disco theme, as it was filmed in 1979.
- The Villain wears lipstick at the end.
- Leslie Nielsen plays a non-comedic role.
- Prom Night, is mentioned in Scream (1996) by Randy Meeks
- It went on to become the highest grosding horror movie of 1980.
- It's one of the most popular and remembered slasher films of the 1980s.