"Horror movies are like boot camp for the psyche. In real life, human beings are packaged in the flimsiest of packages, threatened by real and sometimes horrifying dangers, events like Columbine. But the narrative form puts these fears into a manageable series of events. It gives us a way of thinking rationally about our fears.."

-Wes Craven

"What scares me is what scares you. We're all afraid of the same things. That's why horror is such a powerful genre. All you have to do is ask yourself what frightens you and you'll know what frightens me.."

-John Carpenter

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Prom Night (1980)



Image result for prom night 1980Prom Night is one of those films that are really, really good, but in a low budget, under the radar kind of way. I must admit, I didn't particularly like it when I first watched it, but also didn't give it a proper, fair chance either. It wasn't until a few years later, that I would sit down and really watch it for what it was. When I did, I found that I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it to be a pretty decent horror film. I find that I usually tend to gravitate more toward lower budget, B horror films more so than the more mainstream horror films. I mean, I grew up and was initially exposed to the mainstream horror films of the 70's and 80's, but now that I'm an adult, I prefer the lower budget, under the surface films of that time--films like Prom Night. Although, this was quite possibly a film made to cash in on the success of Halloween (1978), which had came out just two years before and was a tremendous success. But some of the best horror films of the 1980's were made to cash in on Halloween's success. Such as, most notably, Friday The 13th. It's not a big surprise that this would happen, though. Anytime production companies realize that a certain thing works and is successful, they will run that into the ground and bleed it dry until it's dead. And that's exactly what happened to horror films in the '80s. They didn't start to get stale really until the early '90s, and then they immediately dropped off into obscurity. And just like that, the state of horror was crippled. But Prom Night was at the early, high end of it, so it was still good. It still had heart and it still had character. I should mention that in addition to Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis also starred in this Canadian slasher flick. It was highly financially successful and moderately popular in Canada, despite having negative critical response. In fact, it was Canada's highest-grossing horror film of 1980. I would definitely recommend Prom Night to those have not seen it. It's worth a watch or two.

 "Killer's coming! Killer's gonna get you!"

 J. L. Pilkins 
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)