Prom Night (PG-13) ★

This remake of the 1980 slasher film is at least a different story than its predecessor, but it's not very good one.

Story

Poor Donna Keppel (Brittany Snow). Some years back, her parents and brother were slaughtered by Richard Fenton (Jonathan Schaech), a teacher who had developed a psychotic fixation on her. Richard went to an insane asylum, but he broke out and now he's back in town just in time for Prom Night, where he resumes his pursuit of Donna and knocks off some of her friends for good measure. Bringing up the rear is dogged Detective Winn (Idris Elba), desperately trying to nail Fenton as the body count mounts. Sooner or later--and it's much later, unfortunately--Donna will come face to face with Fenton one last time.

Acting

With characters as one-dimensional and dumb as these, there's not much the cast can do except stand around in their prom outfits, waiting to get killed off. As the deranged killer, Schaech stares, glares and skulks around. Leading lady Snow widens her eyes and worries accordingly throughout, while Elba tries to inject a little intensity into the stock role of the cop on the case.

Direction

Working from a bad screenplay by J.S. Cardone, first-time helmer Nelson McCormick displays little enthusiasm--either for the genre or for this particular film. The scare tactics are hackneyed, and usually involve characters surprising each other--a gag that gets really old, really quickly. When one character mutters "This is getting silly. Enough already," we couldn't agree more. And we'd add "boring" to that statement. It should be noted, however, that there's an awfully high body count for a film rated PG-13, even if the film isn't as bloody as one might expect. McCormick and Cardone have re-teamed on the upcoming remake of The Stepfather, and if their collaboration here is any indication, horror fans may have reason to be afraid--very afraid.

Bottom Line

Hollywood.com rated this film 1 star.