Ночь выпускного: Кровавая месть (Noch' vypusknogo: Krovavaya mest')

1980 Canadian slasher film by Paul Lynch
the original 1980 film

Prom Night is a 1980 slasher film directed by Paul Lynch and written by William Gray. Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen star. The film's plot follows a group of high school seniors who are targeted at their prom by a masked killer, seeking vengeance for the accidental death of a young girl (six years earlier). The film features supporting performances from Casey Stevens, Eddie Benton, Mary Beth Rubens and Michael Tough. Prom Night was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in late 1979 on a budget of $1.5 million. Distributed by Astral Films in Canada and AVCO Embassy Pictures in the United States, the film was released on July 18, 1980 in select cinemas and was an immediate financial success. The film's theatrical release platform was expanded to major USA cities such as Los Angeles in California and New York City in New York in August where the film was again met with high box office receipts. At the time, the film was AVCO Embassy's most financially successful release, breaking weekend records in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New England. By the end of the film's theatrical run, Prom Night had grossed $15 million in the United States and was Canada's highest earning horror film of 1980. Critical reaction to the film was varied, with some dismissing the film's depictions of violence against young women, while others alternately praised Prom Night for its more muted violent content. Prom Night received some critical accolades, garnering Genie Award nominations for editing and also for the leading performance of Jamie Lee Curtis. An alternative cut of the film was popularly aired on American and Canadian television networks in 1981. In the intervening years, Prom Night has accrued a substantial cult following for the film's horror content and also for the film's soundtrack album (which was released by RCA Records in Japan in 1980). Some film scholars have cited Prom Night as one of the most influential slasher films of the period. Several companies released Prom Night on video and the film was also released on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 1998. A remastered Blu ray edition of the film was released by Synapse Films in 2014.

In 1974, 11 year olds Wendy Richards, Jude Cunningham, Kelly Lynch, and Nick McBride play hide and seek in an abandoned convent. When 10 year old Robin Hammond tries to join them, the group starts teasing her, leading to a scared Robin accidentally falling to her death through a window. The children make a pact not to tell anyone what happened in fear of getting in trouble. The shadow of an unseen person who witnessed Robin's death appears. Six years later in present day, Robin's elder sister, Kim, and fraternal twin brother, Alex, are preparing for the school prom. Kelly, Jude, and Wendy receive anonymous obscene phone calls, while Nick ignores his ringing phone. Kim and Nick are now dating. Jude is asked to prom by goofy jokester Seymour "Slick" Crane. Kelly is going with Drew, her boyfriend. Wendy—Nick's ex girlfriend—asks school bully Lou to the prom with the purpose of embarrassing Nick and Kim. Wendy, Jude and Kelly each find their yearbook photos stabbed with a piece of glass. Meanwhile, Kim and Alex's father, the school principal, learns that the sex offender blamed for Robin's death has escaped from a psychiatric facility. Lt. McBride, Nick's father, investigates. A figure wearing a ski mask targets Kelly first, slitting her throat with a mirror shard. Jude and Slick have sex in his van outside school grounds. The masked killer kills Jude and causes Slick to drive off a cliff to his death. Staking out the prom, McBride is informed that the sex offender blamed for Robin's death has been caught. Now wielding an ax, the killer chases Wendy and hacks her to death. Meanwhile, Kim and Nick prepare to be crowned prom king and queen, but Lou and his lackeys tie up Nick, and Lou takes his crown. Mistaking him for Nick, the killer decapitates him. Lou's severed head sends the prom goers fleeing in horror. Kim frees Nick and they are confronted by the killer. In the ensuing brawl, Kim strikes the killer's head with the ax. The killer runs outside and collapses before the police. It is revealed to be Alex, who explains to Kim that he witnessed their sister's death and Jude, Kelly, Wendy and Nick were responsible. He dies in Kim's arms.

Director Paul Lynch developed Prom Night after a meeting with producer Irwin Yablans, who had previously produced Halloween (1978). Lynch had wanted to work on a horror film, and had initially pitched Don't Go See the Doctor, a film about a physician who murders his patients. Yablans instead suggested that Lynch utilize a holiday as a basis for the film, which resulted in Lynch deciding to build the premise around the event of the high school prom. Writer Robert Guza Jr., a University of Southern California film student of whom Lynch was an acquaintance, had written a story about a group of teenagers whose involvement in a tragic event as children came back to haunt them. Guza's story was then adapted and incorporated into the film as the central premise and motive for the film's villain. While attending a Telefilm Canada event in Los Angeles, Lynch met producer Peter Simpson, to whom he pitched the idea. "I said, 'I'm working on this thing that is called Prom Night," Lynch recalled. "[Peter] said, 'Look, let's get together and talk.' This was on a Thursday. On Monday he read the treatment, came back and said, 'We'll make a deal to develop a script and do Prom Night.' And that's how Prom Night came about." The film was an international co production between Canada and the United States, and was made under a tax shelter for American film productions shot in Canada.

In the documentary Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (2006), Lynch stated he was having difficulty securing financing for the film until Jamie Lee Curtis signed onto the project; she received a salary of $30,000 (30000.0 in 1980 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years) for her appearance in the film. According to the producer of Prom Night, Eve Plumb (from television's The Brady Bunch) originally auditioned for the role of Kim Hammond, but was passed over after Jamie Lee Curtis' manager contacted Paul Lynch about her starring in the film. Lynch was enthusiastic about casting Curtis, as she had established herself in the horror genre portraying Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978). After auditioning for producer Simpson—which included a dance audition for the film's dance numbers—Curtis was officially cast in the role. Lynch recalled, "For whatever reason, Peter [Simpson] made her jump through hoops, but she wanted it, and she got it." According to Curtis, Prom Night was the first project in which she "made any money." During its opening week runs in New York City and Los Angeles, the film earned a combined $1.3 million, and marked Avco Embassy's highest grossing Los Angeles opening to date, as well as breaking weekend records in Philadelphia and New England. By the end of its theatrical run, Prom Night grossed a total of $14.8 million at the U. S. box office with approximately 5,500,460 admissions. It earned an additional $6 million in rentals during its home video release.

Upon release in 1980, Prom Night received mostly negative reviews from critics, with frequent comparisons to Halloween (1978) and Carrie (1976). The film's advertising campaign was criticized by Siskel and Roger Ebert in a September 18, 1980 episode of Sneak Previews, cited among a glut of other violent slasher films released the same year that thematized "Women in Danger." Siskel and Ebert used the episode to criticize the advertising campaigns for several films, including Don't Answer the Phone!, Hell Night and Prom Night: "[These] ads have been saturating television for the past two years," said Ebert, "and the summer and fall of 1980 are the worst yet." Variety noted that the film "[borrows] shamelessly from Carrie and any number of gruesome exploitationers pic [from a story by Robert Gunza (sic) Jr.] manages to score a few horrific points amid a number of sagging moments." Vincent Canby of The New York Times gave the film a middling review, writing: "Prom Night, the Canadian film that opened yesterday at the Loews State 2 and other theaters, is a comparatively genteel hybrid, part shock melodrama, like Halloween, and part mystery, though it's less a whodunit than a who's doing it." Jack Mathews of the Detroit Free Press also drew comparisons to Halloween and Carrie, though deeming it "not as effective as either." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times deemed the film "an efficient rather than stylish Canadian made horror picture that mercifully lets you complete its grislier moments in your imagination. Even so, its various jolts should be sufficient to satisfy scare show fans." The Atlanta Constitution reviewed the film favorably, deeming it a "surprisingly good scare film. At least the murderer actually has a motive, for a change. If nothing else, it proves there's still a line between a respectable horror film and gross exploitation." The News Press wrote: "If Carrie and Friday the 13th weren't enough for you, this will satisfy your appetite for youth, gore and chills." The Montreal Gazettes Bruce Bailey praised Curtis's performance but criticized the film's lengthy exposition, noting that "it takes rather long to get down to the business of delivering a few shocks."

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Prom Night holds a 48% approval rating based on 23 critic reviews and an average rating of 4.60/10. The consensus reads: "Horror aficionados might have a ball with Prom Night, but a lack of mystery and inability to capitalize on the dance hall setting makes for a generic night of mayhem.” AllMovies review of the film was generally negative, but wrote that it "utilizes a surprising amount of skill both behind and in front of the camera as it goes through its paces". In a review published by Time Out, the film was called "a sincere Halloween rip off which takes time out to milk Carrie, Saturday Night Fever, and all those B feature 'lust and rivalry' high school sagas", but praised Jamie Lee Curtis's performance, writing: "Curtis is superb as Miss Naturally Popular and Prom Queen to be, isolated in empty high school corridors." TV Guide gave the film one out of four stars, writing: "Curtis disco dancing and wonderful moments such as when the severed head of a victim rolls across the dance floor. Prom Night is better than most slasher movies, mainly because it's funnier." Scholar Richard Nowell considers Prom Night one of the most influential slasher films of the 1980s.

Awards Category Recipient ResultRef. (Reference(s)) Genie Awards Best Achievement in Film Editing Brian Ravok Best Performance by a Foreign Actress Jamie Lee Curtis

In late 1980, Canada's CTV Network paid a record $200,000 for three television airings of Prom Night. The television version of the film features some additional scenes that were excised from the original theatrical cut, as well as extended sequences that had been truncated. It was then released on DVD by Anchor Bay on February 18, 1998 with a re mastered widescreen transfer, and was one of the company's first DVD releases. By 2000, Anchor Bay's DVD release had gone out of print and became a rarity, with fans starting online petitions for a re release. On September 9, 2014, the film was released on Blu ray and DVD by Synapse Films, featuring a restored print from the original film negatives, as well as featuring a documentary as well as outtakes, original promotional material, and deleted scenes from the network television cut as bonus material.