SCENARIO #101: Prom Night

Hello there! All month, we're running the teen slasher numbers in honor of Dead Teenagers, which is out March 18 from Oni Press.

DILF: Did I Leave Feminism is still available, in both book and smell form, wherever fine books are sold. Be Not Afraid will be out in collected edition in July.

Since the dawn of time, the American teenager has feared the hand of Natural Selection, which wraps its icy fingers around his peer group every year at the blood ritual known as Prom. Teenagers die by the dozens nearly every time they attend one of these things, if Cinema is to be believed, and yet they keep going — perhaps believing their Prom will be the exception, or merely acknowledging that the herd’s numbers must be thinned if they are to survive.

Prom is a bloodbath, in horror movies, because it’s a threshold to adulthood; the night when teens are supposed to dress up and couple up and hold elections to see which two popular kids will rule them with an iron fist. (Prom is an oddly monarchist democracy, but then again, so is America at this point.) It’s also a gateway to adult sexuality — stereotypically, this is the night to lose your virginity — and if there’s one thing horror movie villains hate more than liminal spaces or rites of passage, it’s sex. 

Prom is the night when horror’s Teens are most distinctly Horror Teens — irresponsible, horny, and in way over their heads — and as such, it is the night when slasher villains surround them, like moths drawn to the flame that is youthful alcohol abuse and premarital kissing. Most of the documentation we have on this comes, of course, from the Prom Night franchise. 

These days, Prom Night is remembered as an also-ran in the world of 1980s horror franchises — not weird enough for Freddy, not horny enough for Jason, too vanilla for Hellraiser — but close examination reveals something extremely weird. For instance, did you know that: 

• Not every Prom Night features teenagers going to Prom? 
• Every Prom Night movie takes place in a separate reality, including at least one where the teenagers have seen the original 1980 Prom Night? 
• The original Prom Night has a long, fully choreographed, embarrassing dance sequence, accompanied by its own diegetic disco song, the lyrics of which are “Prom Night! Everything is all right,” and 
• These lyrics are incredibly insensitive, given that many teenagers are dying? 

• Magic either does or does not exist, depending on which Prom Night you’re occupying — but the non-supernatural reality (Prom Night) is fictional, because the other characters have seen that movie, whereas the ones with magic (Prom Nights 2 - 4) are real? 
• 1999 prom-com She’s All That was ghostwritten by M. Night Shyamalan? 

That last one might seem unrelated, but I’m running low on facts about Prom Night. Also, She’s All That features a long, fully choreographed, embarrassing dance sequence, leading me to believe they are set in the same dimension. 

But you don’t have time to watch all four Prom Night movies. No: You have time to listen to me, the guy who has watched most of the four Prom Night movies, assuming they were available on streaming and he didn’t have to pay for them. Come with me, friends, as we watch the teens enter the Dance of Death.