Retrospective Film Review

Prom Night (1980) • 40 Years Later

At a high school senior prom, a masked killer stalks the teenagers responsible for the accidental death of a classmate six years previously.

Did you watch Halloween (1978) and think Jamie Lee Curtis was a little static in her role? That it could only be improved by a disco-dancing routine as Michael Myers goes about his killing? Then you’re in luck because Prom Night delivers exactly that! This 1980 Canadian horror arrived early in the slasher boom and is a valuable entry for genre connoisseurs, but unlike Halloween or Friday the 13th (1980), Prom Night treads water.

Fresh off the success of Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis finds herself battling another serial killer as Kim Hammond, a high school girl preparing for her Prom Night with her friends. However, six years ago her clique accidentally killed Kim’s younger sister and swore a pact of silence together, which is now threatened by someone who knows their secret.