August 20, 2018
Written by: Ron Oliver
Starring: Lisa Schrage, Michael Ironside, Wendy Lyon
Budget: $1.5 Million
Quote: "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three months since my last confession. I've disobeyed my parents many times. I've taken the Lord's name in vain many times. I've had sinful relations, with boys at my school. Many boys, many times... And one more thing... I loved every minute of it."
Trivia: When tasked with directing reshoots, first-time director Ron Oliver called Wes Craven for some advise on directing a teen horror film. His advice was, "Give them a scare, give them a hard-on, send them home."
If you read my discussion on the first movie, you know I was not a fan of the first Prom Night. Although it is considered a slasher classic (along with the other Slashers in the holy trinity: Halloween and Friday the 13th), it is simply not a great movie. Slow paced, terrible soundtrack, and more style than substance. Prom Night II on the other hand is absolutely incredible! One critic described the film as the Blue Velvet of high school horror pictures. This description fits perfectly. It has all the things that make high school slashers great: shower scenes, teen drama, and of course lots of teenagers being killed in myriad of ways. But what makes this film so great is the extra elements that they add into the film. The filmmakers include surrealist elements, they blur the lines between reality, dreams, fantasy and flashbacks. The movie is what the original one should have been. It is what the original one would have been had I been on acid when I watched it. Oh, and it doesn't have that horrible disco soundtrack and pointless five minute Jamie Lee disco dance scene.
The movie begins in the 1950s with Mary Lou Maloney, the quintessential bad girl in the middle of a love triangle with Billy, her goodie two shoe boyfriend who she is stringing along, and Buddy, the bad boy drunk that she decided to bang at the prom. After Billy catches them in the act he storms off and plans to drop a stinkbomb on her as she's crown prom queen. However it instead lights her dress on fire and she burns alive as the prom audience watches. The scene at the time was the longest anyone had ever been engulfed in flames in a movie stunt.
Flash forward thirty years to the eighties and Billy is now the principal, played by Michael Ironside (the casting is incredible, I really believe young Billy grows up to be Michael Ironside). Buddy, after seeing the chick he was banging go up in flames, has given up the bottle and become a priest. Now Billy's own son Craig is going to the prom with a girl Virgina whose mom is a weird religious nut very similar to Carrie's mom in Carrie. Anyways, she goes rooting around in the high school's prop room for a prom dress and ends up opening up an old trunk releasing Mary Lou's ghost.
From here on out it is a series of bizarre hallucinations and dreams as Mary Lou's spirit murders teenagers and gradually overcomes Virgina, taking control of her body and becoming her. May Lou finds an assortment of ways to murder her victims. The first, taken directly from A Nightmare on Elm Street, find's Virgina's friend attacked and hung by one of Mary Lou's capes (remember that scene in the jail from the original Elm Street?). This death, like Elm Street, is also ruled a suicide. Later Mary Lou stabs Buddy in the face with his own crucifix. Mary Lou also flirts briefly with lesbianism trying to kiss high school hottie Monica in the shower after which Monica runs away terrified. Monica finds a hiding place in a locker which Mary Lou crushes like a beer can.
There is one particularly amazing scene. The scene where Virginia is taken over by Mary Lou. While Virginia is in detention for slapping Monica, she is dragged into the chalkboard which has become a whirlpool of water. Another aspect of the film that makes it so engaging is watch the gradual transformation of Virginia from a shy and religious girl who dresses like a middle aged mom to the fifties song singing, drinking, hottie. She really does become a badass in the movie.
At one point towards the end after Virgina's best friend, who is a blatant Ducky ripoff from Pretty in Pink, coerces Virgina's rival into giving him head to win the prom. No exactly consensual. Time's up Ducky ripoff. Anyways, Mary Lou kills both of them, gets crowned prom queen and then the movie pretty much turns into the prom scene from Carrie. Alright, as I'm writing this I realize that maybe Prom Night 2 wasn't the most original movie, but it still was pretty bad ass! Super fun movie that blows the original out of the water, in my humble opinion.
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