Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.Review in a Hurry: Like, OMG, this is totally a slasher film, except they, like, took out the slasher stuff so we could see it with our BFFs. I know, right? But it's OK because there's this awesome soundtrack with all this music picked by people who think we are total suckers who talk like this. And if any of us ever grew up to make a movie like this, wouldn't you just die?
The Bigger Picture: It's not a night to remember. It's not a night to forget. It's a night to avoid at all costs, to the extent that you might do well to forgo setting foot in whatever multiplexes list Prom Night on the marquee. The only reason for this film not to suffer the indignity of the Razzies is if its just reward is delivered in a more appropriate venue, like the Hague.
This is world-class dumb, you see. This is a film about a girl whose family is killed by a teacher who's obsessed with her, then the teacher's sent away forever to a psychiatric hospital a long ways away except—oh no—he breaks out just in time for senior prom!
And apparently his therapy turned him into a ninja. Not that he'd have to be because all of his victims and all the police after him are truly too stupid to live; it's a wonder he even bothers doing away with people who talk like they're in 90210 fanfic and who, left to their own devices, would clearly wander into traffic.
There are no real characters, no real thrills or scares, no conversations that sound or feel like something taking place between two human beings, no remotely plausible events. The heroine literally can't muster up the courage to face down a table lamp. The big-budget, wish-fulfillment fantasy prom that the villain's going to ruin looks like a plastic music-video hell in its own right.
Didn't that '90s wave of self-conscious horror films put this kind of thing down for good? Prom Night is an embarrassment to everyone involved. It makes the original look like Citizen Kane and it makes Scream look like Shakespeare. It's watchable only though an act of will.
The 180—a Second Opinion: This may not be one of the worst films of all time—that's a pretty tough list to crack. But it is definitely one of the stupidest. There are people out there who deliberately seek out this sort of thing to sharpen their mockery skills. If that's you, you know where to go.