Prom Night (R)
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streaming sites: Amazon; Vudu

This came out in 1980, but I didn't see it until 2018. It's kind of a cult classic, and it inspired three "sequels" (as far as I know they're unrelated, but just use the name of this movie), as well as a loose remake. But because of the badness of this movie, I have no interest in seeing any of them. I'm not even going to bother listing all the things that don't make sense about the plot, I'll just say that most of the movie is boring AF, and the rest is cheesy to the point of being unintentionally funny. And the entire thing is so dated... the prom's theme is "Disco Madness." And I couldn't even tell the main character's boyfriend from her brother; they're both just guys with perms.

Well, it starts in 1974, with some kids playing a creepy game of hide & seek (or, "the killer is coming") in a dilapidated old abandoned building. There are three girls and one boy, but only two of them were important enough to the plot for me to remember their names. There's Nick, and there's Wendy. (The other two are Jude and Kelly.) While they're playing, three other kids are walking past the building on their way to school. The oldest girl, Kim, suddenly realizes she forgot a text book, and has to go home. Meanwhile, her younger sister Robin decides to go into the building and try to join the game, while her brother Alex continues on to school. Robin ends up falling out a window and dying, because the kids all started chasing her. They call it an accident, but while I'm sure they didn't mean for it to happen, I can't imagine anyone in real life, even at that age, failing to realize what was going to happen. Anyway, they all make a pact not to tell anyone what happened. Meanwhile, some sex offender gets blamed for Robin's death, chased by police, crashes and burns, and then is sent to prison.

Six years later, all the surviving kids are going about their lives, preparing for their high school prom. Kim (now played by Jamie Lee Curtis) is prom queen-elect, and she's dating the prom king-elect, Nick. Of course she has no idea that he was involved in her sister's death. Meanwhile, Nick has recently dumped Wendy, whom he was dating before Kim, and Wendy decides to seek revenge, with the help of the biggest asshole in school, a delinquent named Lou. (Kelly and Jude also have their own storylines going on, each of them getting some guy to date, but I couldn't tell you which was which.) Um... I should say that Kim and Alex's father is the school principal, and he's played by Leslie Nielsen. (He gets top billing, despite being a very minor character.) Meanwhile, there's a police lieutenant who is concerned that the guy who was arrested for Robin's murder has recently escaped from prison, and apparently come back to town, but he's not telling anyone about this, to avoid a panic. There's also a custodian at school who apparently the kids think is creepy. And the kids involved in Robin's death start getting ominous phone calls and stuff. And finally, an hour into the movie, someone starts killing people. The killer wears a ski mask, so we don't know who he is. It's possible it's to hide the burn scars the escaped con has, but then again it could just be a standard killery thing to do, to hide his identity. So it could be either the guy who was falsely imprisoned, or it could be the custodian, or it could be someone else entirely. (I won't say who it turns out to be, but I will say I didn't find it surprising at all.)

Anyway, I am glad I finally saw the movie, just because now it's out of the way, and I'll never have to worry about it again. And I guess it's not totally devoid of entertainment value. If you like chuckling at bad movies, or dated movies, or if you just like disco. Whatevs.