Time is a flat circle. I know that could be applied to many concepts that we face as we journey through life, but I am using it here to explain the fun of enjoying the cyclical nature of horror movie sub-genres, particularly the slasher movie. Everyone knows how things have gone in the slasher movie landscape. They were, at one point, THE main horror staple for a good few years. Then they faded out. They were uncool. Then a healthy dose of self-awareness and loving cannibalism helped them to become popular again, as well as sometimes being cool. And now? Well . . . now we have a mix of slasher movies that try to keep things fresh alongside slasher movies, like this one, that are happy to unironically present fans with something that wouldn't have seemed out of place back in the early 1980s (aka the boom period for slasher movies).
India Fowler plays Lori Granger, a young woman who has spent her school years having a pretty hard time of things. She's a target for the likes of Tiffany Falconer (Fina Strazza) and her crew of acolytes, often bullied because of the fact that everyone suspects her mother murdered her father. Thankfully, she has a very good friend in Megan Rogers (Suzanna Son). And she has the courage to nominate herself as a prom queen candidate, although there's a masked killer who decides to seriously affect the outcome by killing off a number of the candidates.
Another film making use of source material by R. L. Stine, this is co-written by Donald McLeary and director Matt Palmer, who made his feature debut with the superbly tense Calibre. I have known of Palmer for many years, and always had confident in his ability to deliver great moments for horror fans, but it's good to see him able to step from his more complex and nuanced debut work to this bright, nostalgia-infused, outrageous slice of gory fun.
The cast all do well in their main roles, with Fowler and Rogers particularly easy to root for as the kills start occurring, Strazza an entertainingly loathsome "mean girl", and Ella Rubin, Rebecca Ablack, Ilan O'Driscoll, David Iacono, and Ariana Greenblatt all doing enough to make their characters identifiable enough, yet also just as prone to be killed off as anyone else unwittingly dancing their way to a Prom Night massacre. The older cast members also have some fun, and you get good turns from Lili Taylor, Chris Klein, Katherine Waterston, and Darrin Baker, who are all given enough time and space to mark themselves out as suspects while the bodycount grows.
The main star here is the production design though. This film isn't just set in Shadyside High in the 1980s. It's set in the school that you picture when you think of every classic school-set moment from the decade, whether that's due to other films being set firmly in that time and place (The Breakfast Club, A Nightmare On Elm Street) or allowing viewers to put on nostalgia-goggles to see something akin to that time and place as other characters seem to literally or mentally move back into the past (e.g. Grosse Point Blank, Hot Tub Time Machine, The Guest, etc). The soundtrack also helps, tickling your ears with hits from Billy Idol, Rick Astley, Roxette, Bananarama, Tiffany, Laura Branigan, Duran Duran, and many more, as well as a couple of superb tunes from Power Glove, and the whole package feels as if it could have been made and released forty years ago. That will be a major plus point for many, but some will view it as a reason to avoid the film forever. As I'm sure you can tell, I am firmly in the former camp.
I don't think there's anything more I can say to those who are still on the fence. Things may feel a bit tame in the first act, but you can rest assured that things get bloodier and nastier on the way to the fun-filled, if slightly predictable, conclusion. Palmer and co. really know what they're doing, and slasher fans should trust them to take them on a fun ride back into 1980s glitter and gore.
7/10
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