Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou

Editor's note: There is not a funny subtitle for this post, because really, the actual subtitle is pretty great.

Maire says:
Prom Night II is one of those sequels that is better than the original. Sure, it keeps the same setting of Hamilton High, the awesome compositional skills of Paul Zaza, and the whole shit-is-gonna-go-down-on-prom-night! theme, while coming up with a completely new, but worth it, plot line. Seriously, how can you go wrong with possession, crucifix stabbing, telekinesis, and computer screen electrocution?

Also, Brock Simpson does a stellar job portraying Josh. Kudos to him for landing that role.

Corey says:
Salty gave us a bit of a talk before we watched Prom Night II. Long story short, he was all like “THIS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE HOLY FUCKING CHRIST. Except the last 10 minutes or so. Other than that it is GREATER THAN DIPPING YOUR BALLS IN LUKEWARM OLIVE OIL. But except for the last 10 minutes, which is a total letdown.”

You know what? That last 10 minutes ain’t too bad. I think he had… uh… un-hyped it to the point where I thought the climax was shortly going to be followed by an Edith Massey burlesque show (then again, that would be a sight). Instead, we get a kind of hokey (but not particularly awful) ending to a pretty neato film.

Overall, Hello Mary Lou does alright. I was super happy to see that, amongst the other name homages, Frank “What’s in the Basket” Henenlotter got a shout out. That guy doesn’t get enough credit. Unless it’s stuff he’d done recently that involves mutant man and lady bits that co-stars some weird third rate rapper buddies of his. I mean, I guess if that dude gave you like half the money needed to make the movie, then you should probably let him in your movie. Then again, giving Henenlotter that money meant that Bad Biology got made.

You know what? Fuck that rapper.

Anyway, the next time someone tells you that something is great, but the ending is awful? Don’t take their word for it! Unless it’s the last season of Dexter. And even if you don’t like the movie, at least it has a stunning soundtrack, expertly put together by the amazing Paul Zaza.

Salty says:
Hello Mary Lou is the bee’s knees. The 1980’s/1950’s mash up is perfect fit (see Back to the Future). It makes you remember why you love movies. Looking back on an old film that is looking at yet another period in time you get this strange layered experience. Both the periods synergize and make this even weirder period that never really existed, but you wish it would have. It’s like curved glass: one piece may shift things in a particular way and another in some different way, but assemble them in the right environment and - blamo! – telescope! This film is a rare treat, comparable to only a small subset of films like Hammer’s Frankenstein or Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. All period pieces must look unusual or kitschy to future viewers, but to continue to hold up to scrutiny and resist becoming unwatchable is an impressive feat that deserves recognition.

Don’t let my gushing distract from the movie itself, Hello Mary Lou is a schlocky horror film. The story is about a cruel high school student, the eponymous Mary Lou, accidentally burned to death (oh those pranks always go so wrong) at prom, her vengeful spirit escapes hell 30 years later through a props department box or something and possesses a young girl. No movie in which a possessed daughter starts to make out with her father after letting her super freaky rocking horse suck on her hand is going to win very many awards, but that’s okay, as a fan of horror I know this and accept it. The reward I get for my acceptance is the full frontal nudity in a scene that begins with an unexpected lesbian seduction and ends with a young girl getting crushed to death by the psychically induced implosion of the locker in which she is hiding. Worth it!

The biggest influences come from Carrie and A Nightmare on Elm Street with a dab or two of The Exorcist here and there, but these horror classics are blended and twisted into new and exciting forms so that the movie still maintains it’s own original storyline and vibe. There are some great visions of Hell, fun 80’s characters (fuck me gently with a chainsaw), a respectable 50’s soundtrack and a pretty good selection of what-the-hell-is-going-on moments that cross the line of absurdity in a good way.

The one cigarette burn in the celluloid is the ending. The film builds up this beautiful crescendo: we’re back at prom and Cynthia (she’s the main character) has just been shot, a gore-drenched Mary Lou emerges the bullet hole (you had to be there). Every time I watch the scene I get so jazzed up to watch an orgy of violent revenge on the innocent students of Hamilton High that I suddenly become a drunk at a football game and can’t resist screaming go get the bastards! Show those turds who’s boss! until my son’s coach tells me I’m disturbing the other parents and asks me to leave. I don’t know who that guy thinks he it, but a whistle isn’t a badge, you know? Then some crap happens and Hello Mary Lou ends flat as an armadillo on 66, but don’t let that make you forget how much fun you had watching Mary Lou kill that priest – this is a good film.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆☆	☆☆☆	☆☆☆

Prom Night - Quit calling me Shirley

Maire says:
Prom Night introduces us to Jamie Lee Curtis’s second silver screen debut, Leslie Nielsen playing a serious role, everyone’s favorite one liner, and of course, the music of Paul Zaza.

In an intro that appears loosely based on Lois Duncan’s most popular novel, we find 4 friends, Young Nick played by Brock Simpson, making a secrecy pact. But someone else is there. Someone who hates prom as much as any other high school outcast. Why? We never really find out.

Cut to usual high school OMG PROM YOU GUYS movie, with the occasional YOU’RE GONNA DIE MUAHAHAHA thrown in and you pretty much can guess the rest.

Schlock highlights - Slick’s Van, the one liner It's not who you go with. It's who takes you home, Wendy’s death, and the killer reveal.

For fans of schlock horror, like myself, this first Prom Night sets up a fairly solid string of ridiculousness. (We won’t talk about this century’s Prom Night.) Just wait until we get to the glory of Prom Night 4!

Corey says:
If you would have told me that Leslie Nielsen and Jamie Lee Curtis were in a film together that wasn’t a comedy, I would have thought you were on drugs. And yet, here we are.

Prom Night was one of the films in the tidal wave of “We-are-studio-execs-who-saw-how-much-money-Halloween-made” slasher stampede. Hell, they even managed to put Jamie Lee Curtis in it, which was something Pieces sure as hell couldn’t do. (To be fair, I really like Pieces, and the ending is fucking weird and creepy.) And, like many of those first slasher clones, Prom Night ain’t that great.

All the tropes are there, of course. The prude, the stoner, the heroine (who happens to be a great dancer), and the red herring (which I totally fell for, I’ll be honest). However, the film just never puts it together quite right. Maybe it’s because this is my first time seeing Prom Night, or maybe it’s because I’ve seen enough slashers to know how they go, but just killing kids for fucking isn’t enough. I need a gimmick, and a dude in a balaclava isn’t enough. I mean, really, it’s not the film’s fault.

Wait, yes it is.

The reason this film doesn’t totally suck is because Nielsen and Curtis are just great to watch, even if they’re in a kind of shitty rip-off film.

On the bright side, the films has a stunning soundtrack, expertly put together by the amazing Paul Zaza.


Salty says:
The opening scene to Prom Night is the scene that I think of when I think of classic slasher openings: kids playing in some verboten place, a prank that goes mortally wrong, questionable liability, irresponsible reactions – it’s perfect! The rest of the movie doesn’t stand a chance.

10 years after the death and the students of Hamilton High start to be picked off one-by-one by a masked madman, who looks suspicious like a guy I remember from Ninja vs. Megashark or something like that. What I remember from my first viewing of the film (on stunning VHS!) is that the movie was very dark (as in poorly lit, not emotionally bleak) and the killer dressed in all black with a black ski-mask, so I had to use the process of elimination to guess who’s death cries I was hearing at any given 20-minute interval. Fortunately, the House of Sequels viewing was on DVD and I got to see what I was missing, which still wasn’t worth the time it took, but there is a stellar performance by an unparalleled horror movie icon.

That’s right I am talking about Leslie Nielsen! I know that the world will remember Leslie from his roles in such classics as The Night Gallery, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Repossessed and of course Creepshow (he can hold his breath a long time) and he does not disappoint here. Watching Leslie not just play the principal of Hamilton High, but be the principal of Hamilton High is just a pleasure.

The movie also offers viewers a time capsule that contains the full-blown stink of the 1970’s. There is feathered hair and too-short shorts and powder blue and disco – oh boy is there disco! In the midst of disappearing teenagers the film comes to a complete stop to give you, the viewer, a disco dance long enough for you to wonder if you should have signed up to watch every horror movie franchise that has more than four entries, because you are beginning to get a taste of what you signed up for and it is a little sour.

Then we reach the big reveal, but by the time we get there we realize that we really don’t remember who was present at the beginning of the film. It’s kind of like the end of an episode of Scooby-Doo where they pull off the crocodile man’s mask and reveal a character you have never seen before. So you just kind of go “Oh it’s… wait… who is that?” They give you a little flashback to try and help, but you really just want to see the end credits.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆☆	☆

Prom Night: The Franchise Introduction

The VHS boxes of the Prom Night series are those sorts of boxes that left indelible prints on my child brain.  Whenever I would go off to the rental store, I would wander down the horror aisle, quickly glancing at as may covers as I could before I chickened out and bailed.  There were covers that I didn't remember until they were brought up, like the dead prom date on Night of the Creeps, or the backpack full of copyright infringing horror icon weapons on Sleepaway Camp.  But there were some covers that were always there, tucked into the back of my mind, waiting for an idle daydream to come rumbling to the surface.  Mary Lou stuffed  in her casket locker of Prom Night 2 and the hell on wheels motorcycle of Prom Night 3 are two such covers.

The interesting thing about the Prom Night films is how diverse of a family they are.  Each film tends to embody a specific little niche in the horror world, from 70's slasher to late 80's camp to 2000's utter remake garbage.  In some ways, I think it would be impossible to like all of them, because each is so specifically different from the other.  In fact, the only link throughout them all (except the remake) is the ineffable Paul Zaza, maestro extraordinaire.  However, that didn't stop us from watching every goddamn one of them.  So grab a date and get in the back seat of your '57 Chevy, because it's Prom Night baby!

The Omen Franchise Summary - Spolier: Satan Loses

The Omen. What the fuck Hollywood? You know who you fucked that rottweiler to please and yet you don't even let Him win in His own damn movie. That's not okay. I mean Jesus? Come on, what an obvious choice, I really expected more from you. Instead what do we, the viewing audience get? Mediocrity, that's what - and Satanic mediocrity is the worst kind. It's like deciding to get fat on purpose and spending the next two years eating a lot of pastas, because baked goods are too sweet. That's dumb. If you're really fat and you don't have diabetes, you're dumb.

Franchise Ranking

Omen II	☆☆☆
Omen I	☆☆☆
Omen III	☆
Omen IV	☆
Omen V	φ

Prom Night's next.

The Omen V: 6 6 suck

Maire says:
First, I really like Julia Stiles. Granted, I haven't seen much of her filmography, but I was still pleasantly surprised when she showed up in season 5 of Dexter.

Second, I had myself convinced that I had seen this film before, and felt good about it.

Well, we know how I feel about shot for shot remakes, so I was pretty let down when I realized what was going on, and that no, I hadn't seen it before. And once again, a star studded cast cannot make up for a poorly executed storyline.

Corey says:
The buildup to this movie was amazing. It’s one of the few advertising campaigns that I remember having an effect on me. I had seen the original Omen years before and it hovered vaguely in my mind as I saw the poster and commercial blitz touting “06/06/06”. Living in the ultra-conservative area I did, the inundation of Satanic fun in the sun created a paranoia that I’m not entirely certain that the rest of the nation (or the world, for that matter) experienced.

To give you folks an idea of how conservative our area is, let me tick off a few quick points. My fair city (we try to call it that, but we aren't really fooling anyone) is home to one of the larger and more famous U.S. Catholic Universities. Furthermore, we have one of the highest concentration of Polish Catholics in the country. Besides the Catholic contingent (who can generally be pretty mild, what with all that guilt), we also have a sizable Evangelical population. LeSEA Broadcasting (one of the most influential and wide reaching Evangelical broadcast networks) calls our town home. In fact, they have not one, two, or three, but four (four!) 24 hour Christian-based programming networks.

Back in ’06, I was working for a restaurant. Most of the folks that worked with me knew that I was a horror nut, and I wasn't afraid to talk at length about films even if no one was listening. Once the ad campaign started, coworkers would come up to me apprehensively, asking about the film.

“Well,” I would say, “I wasn't a huge fan of the original, but it had some good stuff in it,” and proceed to talk about some of the stuff (It’s all for you yadda yadda yadda) I liked, and some of the stuff that was boring.
“Well yeah, but… it’s coming out on 6/6/6.”
“Yup! Super cool for a movie about the antichrist, eh?”
“Uhh…”

And the conversation would usually fade off into other things. I was younger then, and didn’t realize that the folks I worked with were so arbitrarily terrified by a number that the fact that the movie is about the fucking ANTICHRIST was a secondary consideration to the number.

Christians.

This movie kind of sucked, but in the same way that the original did. Mainly because it’s a blatant ripoff of the first, and didn’t really add much to the mythos. Watch the first one twice, and you get much of the same idea.

Remakes.


Salty says:
A conversation between two studio executives.

A: Hey, June 06, 2006 is coming up and since we already have the rights to The Omen, I propose a remake.
B: What do you have in mind?
A: What do you mean?
B: For the pitch? What’s going to fill the seats?
A: Oh, Um… okay. Well, the date thing is really all I had. I figure we can just use the original script, I mean we’ll update it a little here and there, but I don’t really want to have to pay anyone. And we want it to appeal to the kids, so we’ll give it a really slick look. My Dalmation went on the rag last week - it was a pretty startling visual. We should mimic that and do a lot black and white with red splashes everywhere.
B: Aw that is so cool! Hold on I have to go to the bathroom. Hey! Inspiration! How about a scene in a big empty white bathroom? That’d be pretty scary.
A: What do you mean like all the fixtures are white and stuff?
B: No. No fixtures. Just an unnecessarily large white bathroom… Bathrooms are scary. You know over 70% of serious household accidents take place in the bathroom. Plus, it’s a strong visual.
A: Okay, okay. You know what else would be freaky: snow that floated up!
B: Snow does float up unless you’re doing it upside-down.
A: No, I mean like the precipitation snow.
B: … Aw man! That is freaky!
A: Hold on! Let’s get this down on paper… okay what else?
B: Well, we should probably amp up the violence so it will really hold the attention of younger audiences, but I really don’t want to end up producing one of those torture-porn movies.
A: Oh, no problem. We’ll use CG effects for every death. You can do gruesome stuff, but it really won’t look good and it’s super cheap. No one really cares about those parts anyway.
B: Are you sure?
A: Totally.
B: So what have we got so far?
A: Well, we have a menstruating dog in a big white bathroom with a lot of CG coming out on 6/6/06.
B: I’d pay to watch that! We’re really good at our jobs!
A: I know.
B: But what about the talent? We need to get some big names.
A: Well, we’ll just pay like Mia Farrow or someone to come in and do something.
B: Oh! I just had another vision: cow skull in a red silk robe.
A: What does it do?
B: …I don’t know… it’s just a cool thing, you know?
A: Yeah, okay... Hey, do you remember that burned priest from the original? We should make him like all “aw gross!” and stuff, you know.
B: Aw man, that would be totally gross! Let’s work out the details over a round of golf.
A: Now, you’re talking! Hey, this is going to be great!
B: Yeah, I love golfing!
The resulting movie is terrible.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆	☆☆	☆

Omen IV - The Awakening

Maire says:
Why yes, that is the passage describing the wall in the Exorcist 2.

If I had seen this movie in 1991, all of the psychic crystal mumbo jumbo probably wouldn’t have seemed as horrible. Wait, it probably would have.

Side note: The trailer for this is mostly footage of I, II, and III.

Ok, so this time around, Satan’s spawn is a little girl who tries to suffer from bitchy resting face. She’s your typical mute daddy’s girl who happens to be really good at killing people who piss her off. Each kindergarten scene is just gold, and the only reason this gets two stars.

Another side note: Did you know that there is an Omen wiki?

But wait, what’s this?! Ok, so that’s a wacky lil’ twist. Chimera’s are always tricky, but they usually don’t get into uterine implantation. Also, why can’t Satan be a girl? Hmph!

Last side note: You may have guessed based on the other side notes, I don’t remember too much about this film. That may, or may not be on purpose.


Corey says:
Usually, once a venerable series such as the Omen franchise hits the TV film adaptation part of its life, you can pretty much rest assured that the film is going to shit the bed. It’s going to be directed and written by people who don’t have any connection to the original film (and it’s entirely possible they haven’t seen it), and they hire actors off the street like rich folk do with Mexican day workers.

“Hey, I need a child to play the antichrist! Anyone here do that?”
“Well, I’m a little girl that cried in a commercial once.”
“You’ll do!”

It almost feels like the writers of IV used a dartboard as their major creative outlet.

“Ok, we need a protagonist” Throws dart.
“Perfect! New Age psychic nanny! And she can take the antichrist to a…..” Dart.
“Wacky psychic bullshit fair! Where the antichrist….” Dart.
“Sets all this shit on fire, because even SHE knows this plot is crap!”

The strange part about this movie is that it totally sucks, BUT the ridiculous bullshit parts almost make it worth watching. Setting stuff on fire for no reason? Cool. The girlchild is actually holding a fetus that she impregnates into her mom that is actually, really the antichrist? That could have been the stuff of movie legend.

If only it wasn’t a stupid bullshit made for TV movie.


Salty says:
Oh those antichrists, they’re popping up all over the place. You take three movies and do away with Damien Thorne in a half-assed ending and then BLAM a new bringer of the apocalypse shows up to be adopted by some other up and coming political family. Sound like a remake? Well it’s not… okay, it sort of is, in that the plot hits a lot of familiar marks: an adopted baby grows up and doesn’t seem to fit in with the other kids and the mom starts to suspect that something is unholy, but the dad thinks she’s just overreacting and then mom gets pregnant and fears for the safety of her new child so she hires a detective (who wanders into a musical before getting killed by a possessed wrecking ball), and there are Rottweilers, and politics and upside-down crosses (good for a drinking game) and Latin songs about the devil, etc. So… it’s a remake? Nope, the film acknowledges the original three films, eventually explaining (not that you’ll care by the time they get to it) that our new hellion is in fact Damien’s daughter, who bears the structurally similar name Deidra York.

What little fun there is to be had is brought by the attempts to modernize the original film, like the scene where the cast takes a trip to the new age medicine circus. That’s right, it’s a whole circus for hippies with phrenologists, palm reading, magic crystals, patchouli and clowns (there are a lot of clowns in this movie for some reason, they don’t really contribute to the plot or anything, they’re just around). Yes, all of the worst parts of a circus in a single place, which may seem like a bad idea until the antichrist shows up and sets the whole thing on fire. Thanks antichrist! How else are you going to try to win my heart? By telling some Jehovah’s Witness’ that they suck and ripping up their crappy pamphlet? You’re the best!

But killing stinky con-people and dissing blood-hoarders is not all this new antichrist has to offer. Even though she is only eight or something (I have no idea how old any kids are by sight) she takes a punch to the face from the local fat kid without breaking a sweat. Instead of crying about it she keeps her cools and gets her revenge by convincing the bully to climb a random ladder and piss his pants– that’ll show you, woman beater! Then she carves “Krug” into his chest and rapes him and kills him…wait that’s not right… but she does kill his dad. Nobody really talks about it though.

So she’s into women’s rights, and against carnies and Christian cults are you ready to pledge your allegiance to the dark master? Well, don’t waste your time, because - SURPRISE! - she’s not the antichrist! What!?!? Yeah, she’s just Damien’s daughter who was born with the antichrist in her prenatal womb and rather than give birth to it herself, there are a series of injuries that allow the evil family doctor to extract the embryo and implant it in her adopted mother without her mother’s knowledge. So the real antichrist is not Deidre, but instead it is Deidre’s adopted mother’s son, who we think is Deidra’s little brother, but is actually this weird incest baby who is actually Deidra’s kid, and still her actual brother, because Damien, the guy we thought was the antichrist before, but turned out not be (because he lost), is Deidre’s dad! The genealogy tree just has some wavy lines here.
That’s really the plot.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆☆	☆

Omen III - The Final Conflict, but not the final movie

Maire says:
Kill all the babies! One of ‘em is the second coming! Then all the priests, cos one of the babies got away.

Satan is now the dapper looking president of Thorn Industries, and has just been offered the position of ambassador in England. Yes, that should sound familiar. But Damien is way better than his “father” since he has harnessed the power of mind control and amassed an army of followers to do his bidding. He’s even used this power to get on the good side of his hot reporter girlfriend’s son.

But this movie is subtitled The Final Conflict, so obviously some final epic battle between good and evil will occur. Will our all powerful fallen angel win? Almost, until his girlfriend comes and screws everything up. It’s not like he killed her son on purpose. It’s just those damn pesky daggers showed up again. And then she literally backstabbed him with one. Satan defeated, peace on earth, yadda yadda yadda.

Moral of the story, if you want to rule the world with your supreme evil power, don’t date a single mother.

Corey says:
First off, Sam Neill stars in one of the better horror movies that I’ve ever seen.

No, it’s not this one.

I think one of the most interesting things about Omen III is the emergence of the Anti-Antichrist. I mean, you know. Jesus. Or whatever. This is kind of an interesting idea when it comes to the Satanic film. I could be wrong (and Salty is the authority when it comes to this specific genre, so I could consult with him, but referring to my memory is hilarious for everyone else involved), but usually we just have a bumbling priest or private dick trying to thwart Satan, an unholy supernatural force. That doesn’t seem fair, does it? Every Moriarity needs his Holmes.

Regardless, poor ol’ Damien Thorn has to refer to what those old bad guys did back in the day to get rid of this Jesus guy: Kill some fuckin’ BABIES, man. YES. Every dude who was born on the night this wacky astronomical phenomenon (which had some AWESOME special effects in that observatory) occurs is getting the axe, baby. Surely, surely it will work this time.

It didn’t work.

There are some fun nods to the original in III, mainly Damien’s rise to power as an ambassador. And those pesky Megiddo daggers are still around. And the Antichrist is in the movie. And some Bible stuff, I guess.

Salty says:
If I were the son of Satan - the true antichrist - I too would invest in a room with a sad wooden Jesus crucified backwards (to assure the proper amount of sacrilege - thanks for ruining the upside-down cross for the rest of St. Peter) and I too would stand behind it in a vaguely homosexual position while I whispered all of my evil plans into the deaf ears of my nemesis’ mannequin. I too would hang out with guys who have nothing better to do with their time than rig up elaborate suicides to assure that their gory demises are witnessed by their unsuspecting secretaries and whichever poor schleps have decided to pay them a visit. I too would order any potential threat killed in the sleaziest possible way, especially if that meant demanding innocent babies be murdered in their sleep just on the slim chance that they may be the Second Coming according to some astrological mumbo-jumbo. Why? Because that’s the kind of stuff that the antichrist does, that’s why.

The Omen series does a great job of showing the ascent of the antichrist from dark beginnings to reluctant youth to the groomed adult embracing his destiny as the bringer of the apocalypse. The films take care to establish a meticulously crafted antihero, simultaneously making Damien cold and evil, yet likable with the confidence of his actions and his generally badass disposition. This being Damien’s final appearance, The Omen III does almost everything it should as a film about the antichrist finally gearing up for the final one-on-one battle between good and evil. I say almost, because of I could have used a little more evil (Killing babies is not enough? No, it’s not. This is the antichrist we’re talking about.), and while I appreciate that as a politician the antichrist has to make sure his hands are somewhat clean, it is the notion that the filmmakers held back on the depths of evil that the bringer of the apocalypse would delve to that leave me as the viewer wanting.

Without the Satan’s son’s blackest heart on display, the film’s only potential salvation lies in it’s foreboding subtitle: The Final Conflict. By this point in the series, I am rooting for Damien and anticipating a titanic battle between omnipotent forces that will kick off the end of the world with bated breath. Instead, what do I get for my 3-film investment? A lackluster scene in an abandoned church with some crappy music, some strobe lights and a lame quote that is supposed to leave me feeling like I didn’t get ripped off. No battle, no real struggle at all, just the forces of good taking a few seconds out of their otherwise slow day to destroy The Harbinger of Hell On Earth the same way a person might remember that a stove burner is on and then flick it off without drama or tension. They might as well have had Damien collapse dead of a stroke or get into a car accident or something. The ending is almost an insult and does nothing but assures the viewer that watching these three films was a waste of his/her time.

Then they made another sequel for you to watch.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆	☆☆