ollywood is in such a slump when it comes to the horror genre that remakes are constantly surfacing. Most of them are either lavish recreations of films that simply don’t need to be revamped or they’re so critically acclaimed in their original form that the second attempt is doomed from the get-go. The original “Prom Night,” though a relatively generic horror film, became popular enough to spawn three sequels. However, its low-budget feel, poor lighting and cinematography, and second-rate gore effects make it one of the first films in the last decade to truly be worthy of a 21st century redo. Starring the original “scream queen” Jamie Lee Curtis, “Prom Night” was one of the first entries into the slasher subgenre – back when it was still fresh and exciting.

Four young children torment a little girl while playing hide-and-seek in an abandoned school, and their antagonizing bullying results in her unexpected death. Vowing to keep it a secret because of their fear of the police, the four kids never reveal the truth behind the deadly “accident.” Six years later, the guilty party, including Kim Hammond (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Nick McBride (Casey Stevens), are in high school, anxiously awaiting Prom night festivities. As they prepare for the dance, a creepy prank caller begins attacking them one at a time, resulting in horrendous, spontaneous bloodshed.

In one of many subplots designed to keep the audience guessing, a police lieutenant searches for an escaped, once catatonic, severely burned, psychopathic murderer, who has already taken the life of a nurse. Additionally, repulsive janitor Mr. Sykes (Robert Silverman) is rumored to perversely watch the girls in the locker room, and a bully with a unibrow plots to ruin Kim and Nick’s moment on the stage at Prom. The real killer, who makes use of shards of glass and a gleaming axe, is not difficult to figure out, as the premise is merely arranged to allow for “Halloween”-esque chase sequences and lots of screaming and hysteria.

Leslie Nielsen makes an appearance (just a couple of weeks after the debut of “Airplane!”) as the principal of the school, urging anticipation for random jokes that, unfortunately, never come. Humorously, the police lieutenant is predictably coerced into keeping his investigation a secret so as not to incite a panic, while the axe-wielding stalker rambunctiously gums up his attacks. One of the funniest moments, demonstrating a blatant disregard for details, involves a careening car that explodes before it makes contact with the rocky cliffs below. But perhaps the two most memorable and innovative sequences take place on the disco floor: the first shows off dated but nostalgic moves during the King and Queen’s introduction dance; the second exhibits clever scare tactics as the murderer battles Nick onstage as fluorescent lights flicker on and off.

Ultimately, the story deals with revenge and regret as much as with sheer horror, exemplified in a few choice scenes of gore, jump-scares, and a camera that takes the perspective of the killer. While “Prom Night” endeavors to be genuinely scary, it rarely succeeds, only becoming a cult B-movie due to boundary-pushing violence, which has since been tremendously surpassed. To make matters worse, the project adheres to too many of the clichés that have steadily dulled the genre – and without originality or sincerity for support, the abundance of embarrassing technical flaws regularly dominates the screen.

– Mike Massie