Critics Not Fond of the Horror Remake

Prom Night, Street Kings, and 21 were the top three films in the box office this past weekend. Prom Night grossed a weekend’s best $21 million. The 1980 remake film slashed receipts at the box office, but critics didnt find the remake to live up to the original. Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe notes, “When Jamie Lee Curtis ran from a killer in 1980’s “Prom Night,” she was 22 and had a unique gift for belting out fear. She was the Beverly Sills of slasher flicks. That “Prom Night” was dumb, but it wasn’t insulting in the way this remake is. No one seems to know what to do in this movie – unless it involves waiting for the studio’s check to clear. There’s no suspense or perversity. You don’t care who lives or who dies – just please make it..”

Brittany Snow, well known for her leading role in 2006 John Tucker Must Die, played a unique role from her norm. Snow, recognized for her innocent and bubbly persona on screen, had to execute a role in pure horror. But according to many moviegoers, she failed to complete the mission of the movie: FEAR. “Boooooooooooo!,” belched a little boy while the lights turned on in Bowie Royal Cinemas on Friday Night. “That’s It!” a young girl yelled as the credits pop up on the screen. Disappointed, she exits the theatre with a soda on the side. “The film was very typical; you would think there would be more creativity, I mean it’s 2008” Tyrone Powell said after the film was over. Prom Night involved the given killing and screaming, but that continued throughout its entirely. There was no plot. The 2008 remake failed on several levels according to critics. “Ms. Curtis would probably be insulted to learn from the press notes of this new film that it has been reimagined for a “more sophisticated audience. For a film about erotomania, “Prom Night” is a curiously flaccid affair, dampened by a risible villain (Johnathon Schaech) and a bloodless script that channels all its tension into the choosing of the prom king and queen”,New York Times movie critic Jeanette Catsoulis believes.

“Demonstrating little except the uselessness of a restraining order against a loony-tunes admirer, the movie offers less gore than the average Band-Aid commercial and fewer scares than the elimination episodes of “Dancing with the Stars,” Catsoulis continued. “But then, maybe I’m just not sophisticated enough,” Debuting with $21 million the fist weekend, the cast and production team will express few complains. For those not involved, the numbness of the horror Prom Night can be described with an agreed complaint, “another bad movie.”