For this year’s 31 Nights of Horror Challenge, the Day 3 prompt was Jamie Lee Curtis. Jamie Lee Curtis is a horror icon. She is the original scream queen and absolutely killed it in season 2 of The Bear (2023) on Hulu. If you are a fan of hers, that episode alone is worth the cost of a Hulu membership. trust me. Tonight we decided not to watch Halloween but instead went with Prom Night (1980) made just a year after the classic.
Storyline
For six long years, Hamilton High School seniors Kelly Lynch, Jude Cunningham, Wendy Richards, and Nick McBride have been hiding the truth of what happened to 10-year-old Robin Hammond the day her broken body was discovered near an abandoned convent. The foursome keeps secret of how they taunted Robin – backed her into a corner until, frightened, she stood on a window ledge – and fell to her death. Though an accident, the then-12-year-olds feared they would be held responsible and vowed never to tell. But someone else was there that day – watching, and now, that someone is ready to exact murderous revenge on prom night.
Our thoughts on Prom Night (1980)
This is the first time watching this and I immediately thought it was a knock-off mash up of Carrie and Halloween. So many of the story points are there and much of the same types of characters. I will not say this is a good thing. In fact this movie was pretty bad.
4 out of 10
Trivia
According to “The Horrors of Hamilton High”, a documentary about the making of Prom Night, Eve Plumb (Jane Brady from The Brady Bunch) was all set to play Kim. At the last minute, Jamie Lee Curtis‘ people expressed an interest and Eve was replaced.
Casey Stevens had trouble keeping up with Jamie Lee Curtis during the filming of the dance scenes, as she was a well trained dancer who did all her own dance moves while he was inexperienced. A dance double had to be used for Stevens when the dancing got too difficult for him.
According to the Blu-ray commentary by director Paul Lynch, the van that goes off the cliff in the movie was actually stolen by the stunt coordinator.
