Film 010 - Prom Night

(2008, colour, 88 mins)

Director - Nelson McCormick

Starring - Brittany Snow, Scott Porter, Jessica Stroup, Dana Davis

It's amazing that a slasher film with a grand total of twelve deaths can be tamer than a dead teddy bear and about as scary as a sleeping puppy. One of the few recent slasher films rated PG-13 in America (the equivalent of 12A), it's pretty clear why: with no swearing and less blood than an average trip to the dentist, its about as squeaky-clean and young teen friendly as you can get.

The story goes that Donna (Brittany Snow) is getting ready to celebrate her prom night with her boyfriend and four of her other friends, but as luck would have it a crazed ex-teacher who was obsessed with her and murdered her family to be with her has just escaped from an asylum. As you'd expect, this results in all sort of "oh no, there's a killer at the prom" shenanigans.

Except it doesn't, because most of the "action" (if you can call it that) takes place in a suite three floors up at the hotel where the prom's being held. As a result, the film is a case of various teens and hotel staff going up to the third floor and meeting a predictable knife-related death by the hugely non-terrifying killer.

Prom Night uses every cliche in the horror book, sometimes even doing so multiple times. There are three different "closing the mirror door and seeing someone behind them" moments throughout the film: one would be unoriginal enough, but three?

The one saving grace about Prom Night is that the acting from the lead actress Brittany Snow is believable, and she somehow manages to avoid coming across like a generic slasher film airhead teen. But this just isn't enough to carry this complete dog of a film.

Slasher films have three main principles: scary moments, gory deaths and titilation (pardon the pun). Prom Night delivers precisely zero of these and as a result can only be considered an absolute failure.

1 out of 5