PROM NIGHT

Canada, 1980, 90 minutes, Colour.
Leslie Nielsen, Jamie Lee Curtis.
Directed by Paul Lynch.

Prom Night is one of several slasher films that feature Jamie Lee Curtis after her debut in John Carpenter’s Halloween in 1978. She appeared in other Halloween films as well as Terror Train.

This is the kind of slasher movie that became popular after Halloween – and was released in the same year as the first of the Friday the 13th franchise.

This time four young girls were responsible for bullying a young girl who fell to her death when they were twelve. When the prom night at the end of their school career arrives, a masked avenger comes to torment them.

The film capitalises on the high school atmosphere, on Jamie Lee Curtis as the scream queen as she was called at the time, and with Leslie Nielsen as her father. Direction is by British-born Paul Lynch who began work in television in the early 1970s and continued to work prolifically with telemovies and television series.

1. An enjoyable and successful thriller? The appeal of this kind of nightmare horror? Gory murders? The threat to young victims? The realistic American scene? for what audience was the film made? Adult, adolescent? Its quality?

2. The title and its American focus? Adolescence, school? Heroes and heroines?

3. How well did the film create the atmosphere of the small American town, family, school, Prom night and preparations, the range of adolescents, their interrelationships? The police? The escaped madman and the atmosphere of fear?

4. The prologue and the black aspects of the killing game the children played and the irony of its being played in sunlight? the seeming innocence of the children and yet their mouthing the word 'kill'? The irony for the rest of the film? The victim girl and her encounter with the children? The ugly aspects of their hounding her? Her death? Wendy and her control of the other children? Their fear of going to prison, hiding the truth?

5. The irony of the pervert being arrested, the general assumption that he was guilty? His disfigurement by fire, interment in the asylum? The coincidence of his escape, his murder of the nurse? His being captured at the melodramatic moment? The device as a red herring?

6. Prom dates: the passing of time of six years, the family at the victim's grave? The role of the father in the school? His grief, the mother's grief and her getting over it? Preparations for the Prom Night dance?

7. Kim as heroine, a pleasant and resourceful young girl, Queen of the Proms, her practice dancing, her intelligence and friendliness with the other girls, sport? Her place in the family? Her friendship with Nick and going to the Prom with him? Her fondness for Alex?, her friendship with Kelly and the other girls, their discussions, especially about sex? Wendy and her jealousy? Dressing for the Prom, the long sequence of her disco dancing with Nick? The procession and its gory ending? Her violent reaction to save Nick and the irony of her killing Alex? her stunned grief at the end? How well delineated a character for this kind of thriller?

8. Jude in the present and the memories of her in the flashbacks? her friendship with the boy in the band? The threats to her, the photo, the knife? The encounter with the boy in the band, on the cliff, the ugliness of her murder? The boy's death? Kelly and Drew and the threats? Drew leaving Kelly? The ugliness of her death?

9. Wendy and her control? The memories of the past? Lew as the bully in the school? His expulsion? Wendy's using him? The ride to the dance, the plans for disrupting it? The ugliness of the pursuit of Wendy throughout the whole school? Audience antipathy towards her and reaction to her death?

10. Alex at home, the viciousness of the fight with Lew? The murders and the discovery of the truth? how evident was it that he was the killer? The credibility of his actions and motivation?

11. The brief delineation of the father and his role in the school, the mother and her grief?

12. The scenes of violence, pursuit? The suspense atmosphere the invitation for the audience to scream?

13. The appeal of this kind of nightmare horror thriller? A bad influence in frightening audiences, promoting violence? A more cathartic effect for audiences being scared and experiencing nightmare?