In today’s 23rd and final Shocktober Double Feature, we will deal with an ax-wielding nutjob, Leslie Nielsen, horny camp counselors, and a relentless series of homicides! It’s Prom Night and Friday the 13th!
PROM NIGHT (1980)
Take a dash of Brian de Palma’s Carrie, blend in a hint of John Carpenter’s Halloween, sprinkle in a healthy pinch of Saturday Night Fever and you may end up with a concoction very much like 1980’s Prom Night, a mildly effective thriller that just narrowly manages to get the job done. In this film, an ax-wielding maniac targets four high school students who had inadvertently caused the death of one of their friends six years before. One of the unlucky quartet, Nick, is the boyfriend of prom queen Kim, played by Jamie Lee Curtis; what a shame, then, that the anniversary of the tragedy coincides with the night of the big school bash… Anyway, this film really is a mixed bag at best. It rarely goes far enough in terms of excitement and violence, is filled with false shocks and red herrings, and has a slow buildup that is barely paid off in the picture’s final third. With the exception of the plight of Wendy, the bitchiest of the four, whose pursuit by the killer throughout the school and in an underground garage IS quite suspenseful (probably because Wendy is the only one who lasts long enough to show any sign of fear!), and a bravura final five minutes that are memorably off the wall, the picture generates little in the way of thrills. (PERSONAL NOTE TO ASPIRING FILMMAKERS: If a character in a horror picture is not afraid, the audience won’t be either. Imagine the shower scene in Psycho, if “Mother” had merely killed Marion Crane while her back was to him. How less effective that scene would have been, without Janet Leigh’s classic scream and the fear that was so well conveyed! Sure, the scene would still have been suspenseful, but not nearly as memorable and harrowing. Fear is communicable, and without that identification on the part of the viewer, there are no scares; just buildup and butchery.) What’s worse, a side issue regarding Kim becoming aware of Nick’s involvement in her sister’s death is never resolved, and the talents of both Leslie Nielsen and Antoinette Bower (who will always be Star Trek’s Sylvia the witch woman to me!) are squandered in teensy roles. Still, there are compensations. The picture looks great and is well acted by its mainly young cast, and the identity of the killer (virtually every character is suspect) will most likely come as a surprise; I felt sure that I had guessed it for a change, but was wrong, as usual. Director Paul Lynch has given his film some interesting touches also (I love that slow dissolve into a blood-red punch bowl!). Thus, Prom Night isn’t TOO bad a teen/slasher flick; certainly better than some I’ve seen. If anything, the film demonstrates that disco music is good for something after all: It makes an impressive backdrop for watching a psycho go berserk!
FRIDAY THE 13th (1980)
As the last person in the Western Hemisphere to see the hit 1980 slasher flick Friday the 13th for the first time (well, it’s felt like that, anyway!), I suppose it falls on me to say some final words on the subject. Unless you’ve been comatose for the past 44 years now, you must know that this film, directed by Sean S. Cunningham, shows us what happens when a group of randy teenage counselors goes to Camp Crystal Lake to prepare it for its first opening in 22 years, following a pair of unsolved murders – namely, a repeat of those murders, as the teens get sliced and diced one by one by an unseen killer. And this, it seems to me, is the picture’s major flaw. The teens blithely go through their day, each one is dead before he/she practically knows it, no bodies are found, and thus no one ever seems really scared. And as the bulk of the movie takes place during a stormy night, many of these slayings occur in more than semidarkness. It is only in the picture’s final 20 minutes, when the last teen standing (funny, I thought it would be Annie … the very FIRST to go!) finally realizes that something is amiss, that the film takes off and starts delivering anything like gripping suspense. I will admit that our first look at the killer (I’m being coy here, on the off chance that I am NOT the last person in the Western Hemisphere to have seen this) did take me by surprise, especially since I was expecting to see that darn hockey mask! A nice Psycho reversal in this final section leads to an admittedly tense finale. Still, for the most part, this picture drags, with many slow sections, and ultimately Friday the 13th turns out to be not bad, but certainly nothing great. It has spawned a ridiculous number of sequels at this point, but is there anyone out there who knows, or cares, if they’ve made Friday the 13th 13 yet?
Anyway, FanLit viewers, I hope that some of the double features that we have looked at this past Shocktober month will have proven entertaining for you and yours! And my personal best wishes for a fun and ghoulish Halloween!
Thanks for Shocktober, Sandy! I didn’t realize Jamie Lee Curtis was in Prom Night. She earned that “Scream Queen” title, I guess!
At home it’s been a Jamie Lee Curtis week, with the MOVIES channel and AMC playing lots of scary movies, including far too many in the Halloween series, and the original of John Carpenter’s The Fog.
Always my pleasure, Marion! And if you get TCM (Turner Classic Movies), you’ll find that they do a nice job on Halloween, too!