Jul 23, 2009 10:18 AM
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With the sole aim of chilling out I picked up a movie with a flashy name “The prom night” from my movie archive. The name and the poster gave me an impression that it might be a chic flick exploiting the charm of a teenager’s life and love. But the movie which shares its name with the 1980 Paul Lynch slasher flick, turned out to be a horror movie or at least it was meant to be that way.
Run through:
Donna's senior prom night is supposed to be the best night of her life so far, one that is filled with the magic and beauty of adulthood and love. Last day to celebrate the years of friendship and looking forward to a promising future. But when the turn of events leads from magic to murder Donna is left with no option than to witness history repeating itself before her eyes again.
The initial hum-drum:
One night Donna Keppel (Brittany Snow) returned home to find her psycho stalking teacher (Johnathon Schaech) has cut a swath through her family. Hiding under the bed she is witness to the brutal murder of her mother by her teacher. Somehow she survives the ordeal and Mr. Richard Fenton, is caught (which we never know how). Flash forward three years, Donna has been under therapy from that day as she has recurring dreams of the deadly night.
Donna now lives with her uncle and aunt and is just about to graduate from high school. It the day of the senior prom and amidst apprehensions about the stalker in her mind she gets ready for the time of her life. Her boyfriend, Bobby (Scott Porter), arrives at her house, along with her friends Lisa (Dana Davis), Claire (Jessica Stroup), and their boyfriends, Ronnie and Michael. They arrive in style at the hotel where the prom is arranged in a stretch limo.
In the meantime, at the town's police station, detective Winn (Idris Elba) comes to know that Fenton has escaped from prison. Fenton arrives at the hotel disguised as a certain Mr. Ramsey, and takes a room on Donna's floor and kills the maid to get the master key.
The plot thickens:
On the dance floor, Claire has a fight with her boyfriend Michael and goes up to her room with Donna to calm down. After Donna leaves, Claire hears noises and discovers Fenton, who stabs and kills her. When Claire doesn't return for a long time, Michael goes upstairs to check. Michael also meets the same fate there. Winn arrives and warns the hotel staff to be on the alert. Meanwhile Fenton kills a hotel employee looking for the maid and takes his uniform.
On way to the room Lisa bumps into Fenton in the elevator. While making out with Ronnie Lisa realizes that it was Fenton and runs off to warn Donna. Hurriedly she takes the stairs where she is chased by down to the hotel basement. The cat an mouse routine continues for sometime before she is killed.
Winn and his assistant Nash find the body of real Mr. Ramsey in a car in the hotel parking lot. Winn goes up to the room and finds the maid's body. This confirms Fenton’s presence in the hotel so Winn sounds the emergency alarm and has the entire hotel evacuated. Donna goes back to the room to check on Lisa and Ronnie and runs into Fenton.
I am not taking out the entire suspense element and leave it to the viewers to find out what happened next.
Post-mortem:
The entire film reeks of the casual attitude of the cast and crew (from director Nelson McCormick and screenwriter J.S. Cardone to just about every bored actor onscreen). The story had an interesting beginning but by the middle it starts to drag with absolutely no surprise element left in it and scenes where you will feel like the reel has been played twice. You will feel sick and tired of seeing the characters traipsing back-and-forth to their room on the third floor and after sometime you would start yawning because you already know by this time that who ever leaves the dance floor is going to be the next victim. A movie that is supposed to be a horror flick, this one fails miserably.
Britanny plays the part of transforming from a normal fun loving girl to the sobbing traumatized teenager fairly well. Apart from her all the supporting actors were just a waste of time and screen space. The boyfriend didn’t have anything else to do than show a goody goody image and puckering up every 2 minutes. It’s packed with characters so generic that feels like they could have used mannequins with a character tags instead.
However the stalker did his part well considering the lesser number of dialogs given to him. His eyes conveyed a lot when he longingly looks at his obsession. So much so that you might even unknowingly start empathizing with the pedophilic homicidal maniac.
Detective Winn mug his way through a stale cop routine while the viewer wonders in dismay why he doesn’t have any one to assist him till the climax in his mission. We are forced to sit back and watch the killer stabbing his victims to death, as they slump to the floor with not a drop of blood spilled. No doubt - the cleanest killer in movie history!
The complete lack of the surprise element as the movie progressed was a real damper, everyone would start predicting what’s going to happen next, and sad it did just turn up exactly that way.
Verdict:
If you want to watch the movie for some stunningly inept so called ‘horror’ sequences or boring guessing games like in-which-room-the-murderer-can-be-now or to admire chic designer prom gowns - then go for it. For all other reasons this one can be conveniently missed out.
