Bring Back Uwe Boll

Prom Night (2008)

Rating ... F (5)

The trash appeal of old school slasher flicks may persist in the face of their uniformly improbable plotting and pop-psychology, but at least they tried, which is more than anyone can claim on behalf of Prom Night, a PG-13-ified remake with a hackneyed jump scare on every mirrored surface and an offensive reduction of gender roles when the environment boasts scenery with less than specular reflectivity. Understandably, one might expect very little from an H-wood dump during post-Oscar, pre-Summer doldrums but they're given even less from Prom Night, whose forseeable disposability and thematic void pales in the face of its insulting implausibility.

Nobody can find solace in a horror movie - at least, not for long - not even at their own prom. Donna, played by Brittany Snow, is one such individual and evidentally living a story ripped from the tabloids where in the past an unstable high school teacher became so infatuated with her he slaughtered her entire family, and has recently escaped federal prison via a conveniently placed vent, presumably out to finish what he started. (During the sequence, the psycho arbitrarily obtains a sharp object, and also slits his cellmate's throat before exiting. Suffice it to say it's not the only scene I'm at a loss to logically explain.) During all of this, Donna is hard at work planning for the future with her prom escort (who seriously pushes the actors-not-in-high-school-playing-people-in-high-school trend, because he looks to be about 30) and corralling her buddies who squabble with the school's queen bee about prom king and queen. When the psycho makes his way to the hotel, teenagers begin to get dead, all by the same abdomen stab accompanied by a facial close-up. Donna's parents decide - despite police notification, who felt the situation was dire enough to merit immediate investigation - the best course of action was to ignore the life-threatening danger in order to preserve her prom night. Likewise, when the cops bust the party and declare a state of emergency (easily among the year's greatest achievements in sound, an alarm that says "ALERT ... PLEASE EXIT THE BUILDING ... THIS IS AN EMERGENCY" for close to five minutes), a number of the teens refuse to leave until the king and queen are crowned. (Half-hearted commentary on the parochial nature of high school, if you're exceedingly generous.) Once out of the building, rather than head to protective custody Donna and her hubby venture back to her place, concluding along the way that being pursued by a psychopath who slaughtered all of your friends isn't really your fault (duh!), so that the film's last remaining personality can shoot the perp just in the nick of time. Truthfully, the only revelation here is that if third rate studios insist on releasing intermittent sleaze, the least they can do is complement half-assed storytelling with hysterically inadequate filmmaking. In other words, bring back Uwe Boll.