I think sometimes it's fashionable for everyone to hate, or at least state they hate, a film. A couple of years ago it was 'I Know Who Killed Me' and with both these films, I watched them with an open mind and found them both to be fun. entertaining and stylish movies, that really didn't deserve the critical bashing they got.
No Prom Night doesn't resemble the original- but if there's one thing Gus Van Sant's Psycho remake taught me, a remake that sticks too closely to it's source material is more interesting in concept than execution. It's the same with US remakes of East Asian horror- while most people are raving about how fantastic The Ring is, those who have seen the original are bored by it's uninspired retelling. I want people to take the source material and roll with it, I want new ideas, a completely new take- because if I wanted to watch the same film twice, I'd replay the original, not venture out to the DVD store. Perhaps this is the reason I was very impressed by Rob Zombie's Halloween- well at least the first half.
Prom Night reminds me of the slasher films I fell in love with during the 90's- horror was given a boost after Scream and fun, hip films like I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Faculty and, to a lesser extent, Urban Legend were out in cinemas, and for a teenager who grew up on horrors, it was heaven. Prom Night is a tight film, with likable characters, breezy dialogue, some slick cinematography, and some genuinely tense moments. There's so much horror out there that drags on, perhaps under the misplaced belief that it's building tension, but this film hits the ground running, and keeps going.
It's not especially original, some of the shots of the Prom Night partiers feels a little bit too music video which comes across as trying too hard to be cool, but the film kept me watching, and interested all the way through.
With regards to the gore, this film doesn't need it. I watched the unrated DVD, which apparently only adds a minute of blood splats here and there, but even without this I don't think this film would feel neutered- because this film isn't about gore. It's not like the DVD of My Bloody Valentine I watched recently, where the cuts to gore were so apparent that the film felt like it had lost something important- like I was watching the shreds of what was left after a major edit.
Prom Night was never made to depend on gore to draw it's audience in- you get a coherent fun little film despite this. And at a time when so many horror films rely on gore, torture and sadism, it's nice to have a film that almost feels like a more simplistic, even innocent, entry into the genre- one where you want the girl to survive, not wondering what gruesome way she can be murdered.
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