Prom NightMovie Reviews

Poster art for "Prom Night."

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Avg. Critic Score: 17 out of 100 Overwhelming dislike Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
16 Iffy for 16+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 70
    Variety | Joe Leydon

    A surprisingly effective teen-skewing thriller that soft-pedals graphic violence (in marked contrast to the R-rated 1980 original) while generating a fair degree of suspense. Read full review

  • 50
    TV Guide | Maitland McDonagh

    Formulaic to the core, this reworking of the fondly remembered high-school slasher picture works surprisingly well on its own terms. Read full review

  • 40
    The Hollywood Reporter | Michael Rechtshaffen

    Without the gore, this old school slasher rehash is one anemic bore. Read full review

  • 30
    Los Angeles Times |

    This is as listless, mindless and utterly useless a piece of corporate brain-clog as one is likely to come across for quite some time. Read full review

  • 25
    Entertainment Weekly |

    Viewers' own evenings, meanwhile, will likely be ruined by unimaginative direction, inane dialogue, and Schaech's passing resemblance to Forrest Gump. Read full review

  • 20
    L.A. Weekly | Chuck Wilson

    McCormick and screenwriter J.S. Cardone don't have one original thought between them, but they do appear to share an obsession with characters opening hotel-room closets in which the steel hangers gleam ominously. Read full review

  • 20
    The New York Times | Jeannette Catsoulis

    The movie offers less gore than the average Band-Aid commercial and fewer scares than the elimination episodes of "Dancing With the Stars." Read full review

  • 16
    The Onion A.V. Club | Scott Tobias

    There's really nothing much to Prom Night: No twists, no atmosphere, no big Grand Guignol setpieces, not a single moment when it tries to do something novel with the event, the killings, the villain, or the victims. It's a little like going on a tour of the slaughterhouse, where death is meted out with mechanical regularity, but visitors are kept at a safe, PG-13 distance from all the butchering. Read full review

  • 12
    Boston Globe | Wesley Morris

    When Jamie Lee Curtis ran from a killer in 1980's "Prom Night," she was 22 and had a unique gift for belting out fear. She was the Beverly Sills of slasher flicks. That "Prom Night" was dumb, but it wasn't insulting in the way this remake is. Read full review

  • 0
    Austin Chronicle | Marc Savlov

    A nearly bloodless slasher film with fewer surprises than a broken jack-in-the-box. Read full review

View more reviews for Prom Night on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 16+ Schoolhouse horror -- go to the back of the class.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this isn't the PROM NIGHT from 2008, but rather the 1980 original. There is nudity and teen sex among the characters. While violence isn't torture-porn level, there are still bloody killings and death. Characters are mean-spirited, smoking and drinking teens who fight. There exist a series of barely related sequels (Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night Two), conspicuously done without the actors here, that go much farther into gore, sex, and campy tastelessness.
  • Families can talk about why it's bad to play in abandoned buildings, for openers. Young people like to watch movies in which young people get slaughtered. Why? What makes a "good" slasher-horror movie? You could talk about the crusade against these films led by critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert (who both gave Halloween big thumbs-up, by the way) saying that they were dehumanizing and hatefully anti-female. Do you think that's true? gave him a complete makeover as a comic.
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Hardly anyone worth imitating here among the thin-sketched dramatics, though Jamie Lee Curtis is, as usual, the most likeable of the kids. Like many movies in this genre, people who undertake sex/drugs are the first to die, as though it were summary-execution punishment. The only time any of these students mentions "studying" is when he shows that his hollowed-out history book holds his drug stash.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: Killer slashes and knifes victims with a shard of glass or chops with an axe. One decapitation. Car crashes, a man set on fire, and a little girl killed/mutilated in a fall from a window.
  • sex false3 Sex: Topless co-ed trying to have sex. Butt shots, dressed and undressed, by skimpily attired girls. Females in gym locker room in towels and bras.
  • language false3 Language: Widely scattered f-word, "hell," "bastard."
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Teen smoking (cigarettes and pot) and drinking.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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Dave White

1.5

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… it loses by virtue of sheer dumbness. Read full review See Dave White's on MOVIENAME on Movies.com

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Prom Night Movie Ratings + Reviews

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So-so 10,253 fan reviews

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