Taglines: …Some will be crowned, others will lose their heads.
Prom Night movie storyline. For six long years, Hamilton High School seniors Kelly Lynch, Jude Cunningham, Wendy Richards and Nick McBride have been hiding the truth of what happened to ten-year-old Robin Hammond the day her broken body was discovered near an abandoned convent.
The foursome keep secret of how they taunted Robin – backed her into a corner until, frightened, she stood on a window ledge – and fell to her death. Though an accident, the then-twelve-year-olds feared they would be held responsible and vowed never to tell. But someone else was there that day – watching, and now, that someone is ready to exact murderous revenge on prom night.
Prom Night is a 1980 Canadian slasher film directed by Paul Lynch, written by William Gray, and starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen. The plot follows a group of high school seniors who are targeted at their prom by a masked killer seeking vengeance for the accidental death of a young girl six years earlier. It features supporting performances from Casey Stevens, Eddie Benton, Mary Beth Rubens and Michael Tough.
Prom Night was filmed in Toronto in late 1979 on a budget of $1.5 million. Distributed by AVCO Embassy Pictures, it premiered in the United States in July 1980 in select cities, and was an immediate financial success. Its release platform expanded to major cities such as Los Angeles and New York in August, where it was again met with high box-office receipts. At the time, the film was AVCO Embassy’s most financially successful release, breaking weekend records in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New England.
By the end of its theatrical run, Prom Night had grossed $15 million in the United States, and was Canada’s highest-earning horror film of 1980. Critical reaction to the film varied, with some, such as Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, dismissing it for its depictions of violence against women, while others alternately praised the film for its more muted violent content. Prom Night received some critical accolades, garnering Genie Award nominations for editing and for Curtis’s leading performance. An alternative cut of the film was popularly aired on American and Canadian television networks in 1981.
In the intervening years, Prom Night has accrued a substantial cult following, not only for its horror content but also for its disco-heavy soundtrack, which was released by RCA Records in Japan in 1980. Some film scholars have cited Prom Night as one of the most influential slasher films of the period. Several companies released the film on video, and it was distributed on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 1998.
Prom Night (1980)
Directed by: Paul Lynch
Starring: Leslie Nielsen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Stevens, Anne-Marie Martin, Antoinette Bower, Michael Tough, Robert A. Silverman. Pita Oliver, Mary Beth Rubens, Melanie Morse MacQuarrie
Screenplay by: William Gray
Production Design by: Deanne Judson
Cinematography by: Robert C. New
Film Editing by: Brian Ravok
Art Direction by: Reuben Freed
Makeup Department: Jenny Arbour, Kathleen Mifsud
Music by: Paul Zaza, Carl Zittrer
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: AVCO Embassy Pictures
Release Date: July 18, 1980 (United States)
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