Movie Review Prom Night

Prom Night (2008) 

Directed by Nelson McCormick 

Written by J.S Cardone 

Starring Brittany Snow, Scott Porter, Jessica Stroup, Johnathon Schaech

Release Date April 11th, 2008

Published April 11th, 2008 

I have seen the movie Prom Night 3 times. The first time, I dismissed it as just another PG 13 teen horror movie. The second time I was modestly impressed with the compact plotting and the director's crisp clean visuals. Now, having seen it on Blu Ray, the visuals even more pronounced, I am fully impressed with Prom Night as just the right kind of throw away Saturday night horror movie. An easy, disposable rental that may not stick with you long after it's over but will compel you while it's on.

Brittany Snow stars in Prom Night, similar in name only to the 1980 Prom Night, as Donna Keppel. Two years prior to the films events, her parents and little brother were murdered. The killer was Donna's teacher who professed to having killed them so that he and Donna could run away together. He was caught and sent to a not so high security mental institution.

Two years later, as Donna is readying for Prom Night, teach (Jonathan Schaech, a long way from That Thing You Do) has escaped and is returning for his prize. Only detective Wynn (Idris Elba), the man who put the teacher away 2 years ago, can protect Donna but not knowing whether the teacher is really coming after her, he doesn't want to ruin prom. Thus sets up a Prom Night showdown. Donna and her friends and the hidden cops all over a luxury hotel vs a determined psychopath. Let the body count commence.

Why the cops don't just close in on Donna and whisk her away to safety, prom be damned, is an admittedly weak premise, they don't want to ruin prom, but if you can put that aside, Prom Night isn't half bad. Director Nelson McCormick (TV's Prisonbreak, Nip Tuck) has a strong visual sense and takes advantage of the luxury hotel setting for some terrific use of set design.

Overcoming J.S Cardone's weak screenplay which paints the director into numerous logical corners, McCormick does a tremendous job of keeping things  fast paced, exciting and even fun, if you like horror movies.

I am generally opposed to PG-13 horror movies. I think if you are going to make a horror movie, you can't limit yourself with restrictions on gore, violence, language and nudity. Granted, not all of those are necessary for horror, but they help. Director Nelson McCormick overcomes the limitations with a sizable body count and a creeptastic performance by Jonathan Schaech.

With his dirty stubbled face and intense creep eyes, Schaech sells every inch of this character even as his intentions are unclear. Writer Cardone never figured out exactly what the teacher intended to do once he caught Donna. Run away and live sickly ever after with her as a captive? Kill her on the spot. If he is just going to kill her, why does he pass up several shots at just getting it done?

The movie irritatingly screws with the audience more than once with the teacher passing up on killing Donna at most vulnerable moments. That said, there is more good than irritating in what makes up Prom Night.

No, Prom Night is not a great movie but for a formula teen horror picture it's solid and well crafted. The killer is creepy and disturbing and the heroine is someone we don't wish harm upon. It has the basics down and given the recent track record of the teen friendly horror genre, that is all we can really ask. It's nothing more than a saturday night rental, nothing you will remember on Sunday.

Break out the popcorn and beer and enjoy 88 minutes of well crafted cheese ball horror.

Movie Review John Tucker Must Die

John Tucker Must Die (2006) 

Directed by Betty Thomas

Written by Jeff Lowell

Starring Jesse Metcalf, Brittany Snow, Ashanti, Sophia Bush, Arielle Kebbel, Penn Badgley, Jenny McCarthy, Taylor Kitsch 

Release Date July 28th, 2006 

Published July 29th, 2006 

The most striking thing about the new teen comedy John Tucker Must Die is its impressive online ad campaign. Taking full advantage of the zeitgeist grabbing MySpace.com, the producers of John Tucker Must Die created the films official website on MySpace. They recruited teens in the films target demo to spread word about the film on their blogs and on MySpace message boards and they plastered every inch of the site with pictures of star Jesse Metcalf whose hunky visage was the selling point for the films target audience of teenage girls.

By the time the film actually arrived in theaters it really didn't matter if the film was any good, the marketing had worked like gangbusters in turning out the exact audience demo the studio had been trying to attract.

Now that that is out of the way the question remains; is the film any good? It's not a simple answer. On the one hand I as a 30 year old male film critic felt the picture was derivative, lazy and not nearly as funny as it thinks it is. On the other hand, watching the film in a theater crowded with teen girls cackling at the films every turn of plot, I can't deny the film is effective in many ways.

Jesse Metcalf is the titular star of John Tucker Must Die but the lead role actually belongs to Brittany Snow as Kate. Always the new girl, thanks to her mom (Jenny McCarthy) and her misadventures with men, Kate arrives at yet another new school once again as an outcast. Being her usual anonymous self, Kate flies below the radar observing the goings on at her new school and particularly the goings on surrounding the school super-stud John Tucker.

Tucker is captain of the basketball team and is currently dating the head cheerleader Heather (Ashanti), the valedictorian Carrie (Arielle Kebbel) and the schools top causehead Beth (Sophia Bush). Because the girls run in different circles they know nothing of each other and John Tucker. Kate knows because John has taken each of them to the restaurant where she works.

One day John's girls are fatefully thrown together and one just happens to mention John. All hell breaks loose between the three girls and eventually engulfs poor Kate. Asking the logical question why they are beating on each other when it's John they should be mad at, Kate sets in motion a plot to get revenge on the cheating, lying John Tucker.

The plot and poster might give one the impression of a dark comedy about a high school murder plot. Unfortunately, John Tucker Must Die is not nearly as ambitious as its title. The girl's revenge plot is more mean spirited than it is vengeful. The early plotting involves turning John into the poster boy for STD's, spiking his water with estrogen and tricking him into wearing a thong in front of all of his buddies.

When none of these plots is able to derail the surprisingly resilient John Tucker, the girls hatch one final plot. After John finally breaks up with each of the three plotters, they decide to turn Kate into John's ultimate fantasy girl. Using their inside knowledge of his likes and dislikes, they will get John to fall for Kate and then have her dump him like he dumped them.

My plot description is a little more straightforward than the film itself which is often distracted ogling its supermodel cast. There is no one in the cast of high school age and rarely do you see a face that does not belong on a magazine cover. Seriously, what planet is this movie from planet Maxim in the FHM universe. It's difficult to take anything in the film seriously when you are distracted by more than fifty of Maxim magazine's future and even former cover girls (star Arielle Krebbel is one of Maxim's top 100 hotties).

Like so many broad teen comedies, John Tucker Must Die wants it both ways. It wants to be broadly comic but also have honest pathos and characters we care about. Well, you can't have it both ways. Director Betty Thomas and writer Jeff Lowell needed to make up their minds at some point and decide if John Tucker Must Die was going to be a dark teen comedy a la Mean Girls or a more sensitive but broad film like those awful Freddie Prinze Jr movies from the late 90's early 2000's.

Is this American Pie or a movie Hillary Duff turned down. John Tucker Must Die doesn't know what it wants to be. Thus it winds up a beaten mutt of a movie with elements of any number of different movies with no real center of its own.  

With all of the obvious problems of this film I certainly cannot and will not recommend it. However, I can't completely write the film off either. Watching the film with a nearly sold out audience filled with girls from 12-16 who roared with laughter throughout, I could not help but be struck by the effect the film had on its target demographic.

I'm not actually sure if I am impressed or a little frightened by how well John Tucker Must Die hits with teen girls. It tests so well that it must have been tested to death upon its initial completion so that each scene would hit the target audience just right. A scientific approach to filmmaking that I find terribly disturbing. I'm honestly conflicted. On the one hand, who am I to deny people a calculated good time? On the other hand this is not art in any way shape or form.

There likely was little to no artistic effort put into crafting John Tucker Must Die. It is a product tested and sold to a market of consumers pre-destined to want to consume and enjoy it. A filmic symbol of our mechanistic society that meets the exact needs of consumers no matter what needs they may be. This mechanism however robs us of humanity and experience.

Watching a film should be an experience that reaches out to the audience and leaves them with a sense of having been a part of something, like all great art. Movies like John Tucker Must Die are merely mass consumed quantities like popcorn or chocolate bars. Easily digested and disposed of. They contain minor pleasures and empty calories but leave no trace of themselves later.

An example of what I hate about modern Hollywood, John Tucker Must Die is the ultimate in product placement. The product just happens to be the film itself rather than a McDonalds or Coca Cola. John Tucker Must Die is itself a mass consumer product of disposable value and forgettable minor pleasures. The ad campaign and MySpace site may have a place in marketing history, but the film is more forgettable than that bag of fritos you finished off sometime ago and cast into the abyss of an empty garbage can destined for a landfill.