Prom Night Movie Review – A Night to Die For

Runtime: 88 minutes

Release Date: April 11, 2008

Rating: PG-13

Director: Nelson McCormick

Donna (Brittney Snow) is a typical high school student who comes home to find most of her family dead. After hiding under her bed, she sees her teacher, Mr. Fenton (Jonathon Schaech, "Dark Circles"), murder her mother. The police manage to catch him, and he winds up in a mental institution.

Three years later, Donna is in high school, living with her aunt and uncle, and getting ready for her high school prom. Her best friends help her get ready for the big night, but she keeps thinking that she sees Fenton around town. When she leaves for her prom, she doesn't know that Fenton actually escaped and is staying in a room in the same hotel. Fenton starts working his way through the crowds, eliminating her friends and everyone he thinks is competition while a detective is hot on his trail.

I cannot believe how much hate the remake of "Prom Night" gets! I have actually heard people say it's not as good as the original. Are you kidding me? Have you seen the original lately? All I have to do is think about that dance scene, and I'm done. I think some of the hate relies on the fact that it was yet another PG-13 horror movie that came out marketed towards teens in the middle of 957 billion other PG-13 horror movies marketed towards teens.

I don't have a problem with "Prom Night," and I even like it. My big problem is with the casting of Schaech. This is a man who is so attractive that he married Christina Applegate, and yet we're supposed to believe that he scared a teenage girl so much that she had a restraining order against him. With the way teens are today, she'd be more likely to have sex with him in his car than cry about how he was stalking her.

The PG-13 rating does get to me because it limits how much action we see. We get a lot of shots of Schaech looking menacing, someone screaming, and the a cut to people dancing. I highly recommend the unrated version, which has a little more action and gore. If you only ever watched the version that played in theaters, track down a copy of the unrated "Prom Night."