Back in 1957 bad girl Mary Lou Maloney was accidentally set ablaze at Hamilton High's prom, the victim of a prank gone wrong – her date Bill Nordham (reliable B-movie stalwart Michael "Scanners" Ironside) had only wanted to show her up for going off with another guy.
Thirty years have passed, the incident for which no one was ever brought to book all but forgotten. Bill has gotten on with his life and is now principal of Hamilton High, with his own son Craig, now in his senior year.
Then the spirit of Mary Lou is unwittingly unleashed by Craig's girlfriend Vicki Carpenter. Mary Lou takes possession of Vicki (Wendy Lyon; eerily reminiscent of Cheryl 'Rainbeaux' Smith) and goes in search of revenge…
As the liner notes to this 1987 horror reveal, it was originally released as The Haunting of Hamilton High , then opportunistically rebaptised with the Prom Night II label as a means of tying it in the Jamie Lee Curtis/Leslie Nielsen sub- Halloween slasher from 1980, with both the Canadian productions inexplicably using the Hamilton High name.
But while there's a hide-in-a-locker moment that perhaps recalls Carpenter's film, Prom Night II's main influences lie elsewhere, in the form of Carrie , The Exorcist and A Nightmare on Elm Street .
The filmmakers make no attempt to hide this, instead shouting it out loud and proud by, for instance, having the local priest – the only other person who knows the truth of Mary Lou's death – attempt a "power of Christ compels you" exorcism or – in a more subtle in-joke way – through naming their characters after genre directors (Carpenter, Henenlotter, Craven etc) in the manner of Joe Dante's The Howling .
The result is a film that, even if never reaching the levels of the better of its inspirations and not really bringing anything new to the party, nevertheless delivers the schlock goods.
The effects, while necessarily cheap, cheerful and not up to contemporary standards are nevertheless satisfactory for the most part, with Vicki's possessed rocking horse a particular stand out.
The shocks and gore are likewise decent for an R-rated entry from a time when the censors were less forgiving than now, with the filmmakers even including some pleasingly gratuitous (female) nudity by way of mitigation for the obligatory 80s fashion crimes.
Presentation wise this Region 2 PAL DVD from Network is a disappointment.
Whereas the packaging identifies the picture as being 1.85:1 widescreen, I found it played at approximately 1.33:1, although the presence of the boom mike on occasion perhaps suggests an open matte production. Less excusable, however, is the poor quality of the image, with some quite considerable dirt, grain and artefacting that give the impression of a straight video port at times.
The stereo English sound is better by comparison, though certainly nothing special.
The only extra is the film's trailer, again presented in roughly Academy ratio.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
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