Prom Night

Prom Night (1980)

  • 29% of critics liked it
    (17 reviews)

  • 41% of users liked it
    (19,701 ratings)

This low-budget, tongue-in-cheek horror film of the slasher genre -- which had recently been popularized by Halloween (1978) -- stars that film's lead, Jamie Lee Curtis, as Kim Hammond, a prom queen who becomes a scream queen. Six years ago, a little girl was taunted by four classmates and fell… More

R,
Directed By
Genres
Horror
In Theaters
Aug 15, 1980 Wide

Critic Reviews

  • Variety Staff, Variety

    Director Paul Lynch seems to capture the spirit of the genre here, but spends a little too much time setting up each murder, thus eliminating some suspense.

  • , Time Out

    If you forget motivation, the visual trick-or-treat of slow revenge is entertaining enough.

  • Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

    Why do people go to these movies?

  • Vincent Canby, New York Times

    Because it's quite easy to figure out the killer's identity by simply keeping track of who is off screen a lot, much of the movie is just vamping for time.

  • Charles Cassady, Common Sense Media

    Schoolhouse horror -- go to the back of the class.

Read all 13 critic reviews

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Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

  • Jeff "


    With the slasher boom exploding in the early 80's after John Carpenter's Halloween became a success in 1978 upon its release, every studio got the craze to rip it off and create their own slasher films. But the slasher films of the 80's had something that Halloween… More

  • AJ V


    On okay horror movie, it's kind of predictable, but it has some good suspenseful scenes too. I'm not a big fan of Curtis, but she's okay. The story is pretty good, but it could be better.

  • Wahida K


    Leslie Nielsen in a Horror. I didnt believe it first. I thought it was another of his "Insane sense of humor" Movies I prefer to watch. It was not bad. They were too old for games, but someone still wanted to play.

  • Eric S


    What can I say, this film's a horror classic, and one of the first slasher films that spawned many, even to this day. Sure the acting isn't great to say the least, but Jamie Lee Curtis stands on her own as the "scream queen" she was so destined to become. She just… More

  • Steve K


    One of those original slashers that had managed to elude me for all these years, it ended up being, probably inevitably, a disappointment. Not that I had my hopes set high, but all of the slashing action is relegated to the last half hour and isn't done very realistically or… More

Read all 20 featured audience ratings

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Cast

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