‘Prom’ offers clichéd horrors

“Prom Night” has all the clichéd trappings of a slasher movie. It contains the opening dramatic sequence, the orphaned, haunted heroine, the escaped mental patient and the party full of teenagers. It also can boast of fake scares, misleading editing, plot holes and cleavage.

That’s not to say “Prom Night” is a complete retread of stock situations or even the 1980 movie of the same name. Indeed, this update goes in a completely different direction, focusing on Donna (Brittany Snow), the sole survivor from an attack on her family by her former science teacher. Three years later, he’s escaped from the mental hospital and looking for her so that they can be together at last. Donna, meanwhile, is just beginning to recover from the shock of watching her mother being butchered before her eyes.

“Prom Night” goes back to its old-school horror roots by displaying no blood during the murders and very little afterward. The murders themselves are never shown dead-on, if at all. And the body count is comparatively low, especially among the featured characters. This downplay of violence in both quantity and quality is refreshing or disappointing, depending upon the perspective.

The largest argument in favor of “disappointment” is hiding the details of the murders because of the lack of anything to fill the void. One is led to believe screenwriter J.S. Cardone and director Nelson McCormick are trying to create something more along the lines of suspense than horror. But too much time is spent on lazy, anti-climatic stalking scenes and so many fake scares, the real ones register barely any impact at all. “Prom Night” throws in the towel from the get-go and never tries to offer anything beyond the basics.

Cardone has, however, crafted characters decently rounded for a horror movie. If they aren’t completely realistic, they all have at least a touch of humanity about them and are certainly better developed than the teens of average horror films.

Snow, in a role quite different from her most recent stint as Amber Von Tussle in “Hairspray,” has a particularly effective performance in a lead role. Though not stunning, it’s more than passable. Johnathon Schaech has a suf

ficiently creepy stare as he stalks his victims, but his unfortunate resemblance to Billy Bob Thornton creates the expectation he’ll soon be asking for some “french-fried potaters.”

Overall “Prom Night” is stronger on plot and character development than most horror movies but lighter on body counts and thrills. The movie is like prom itself: glitzy and superficial but hits the spot if you are in the right mood.