LE BAL DE L'HORREUR

Quality slasher from 1980 with Jamie Lee Curtis

Six years after a girl is accidently killed near Lake Erie in the Cleveland area, each of the offenders gets picked off on prom night by an unknown killer. Leslie Nielsen plays the principal of the school and father of the girl who died.

“Prom Night” (1980) combines elements of “Carrie” (1976), “Halloween” (1978) and “Saturday Night Fever” (1977). It contains the prom set-up & conniving students of the first one, the slasher killer & Jamie Lee Curtis of the second and the disco dancing of the third. The emphasis of a group of teens in high school is reminiscent of the later “Christine” (1983). The movie debuted 2.5 months after “Friday the 13th” and less than 21 months after “Halloween.”

While it’s the least of these as far as polished filmmaking goes, it’s not far off and scores better on the female front than all of them except “Friday the 13th.” It’s basically a coming-of-age flick focusing on high school in the Great Lakes region with the threat of a masked assailant. There are no less than four possible suspects and I was unable to guess the slayer.

The film runs 1 hour, 32 minutes and was shot in the Toronto area (Richmond Hill, St. James Cemetery, Scarborough Bluffs and Don Mills Collegiate Institute).

GRADE: B-