Prom Night

Formulaic to the core, this reworking of the fondly remembered high-school slasher picture works surprisingly well on its own terms.

Fans of over-the-top blood and guts horror such as Saw will be bored with this tame, old-fashioned slasher flick.

Despite the obviousness of it all, there is a certain satisfaction to the paint-by-numbers sort of horror film.

The scariest thing here is the acting: No one but Snow looks like they’d deserve an audition for Gossip Girl.

Horror films are rarely distinguished by complexity and nuance, but the thought process involved in making Prom Night got no further than this: Hey, let's make a horror movie about a prom night.

A dishwater-dull remake whose occasional scares will thrill the slumber-party crowd but barely wake up the true horror fan.

It's a little like going on a tour of the slaughterhouse, where death is meted out with mechanical regularity, but visitors are kept at a safe, PG-13 distance from all the butchering.

For a slasher flick, there's a decided lack of actual on-screen slashing.

This remake of the 1980 slasher film is at least a different story than its predecessor, but it’s not very good one.

Prom Night may not be the time of your life, but you won't feel as though you've wasted a big chunk of it.

Prom Night boils down to an obsessed maniac (Johnathon Schaech) on the loose with a knife and a disappointingly routine, matter-of-fact plot that just doesn't cut it.

Director Nelson McCormick has no idea how to use editing and composition to create tension.

There's absolutely zippo to fear about this movie, unless you're the kind of person who jumps when formula bogeymen do exactly what you'd expect them to do.

Every actor struggles with their completely unrealistic characters and at times it’s almost embarrassing to watch them give what will undoubtedly be the worst performances of their careers.

Prom Night is not meant to be a horror movie. Apparently it is intended to be more of a psychological thriller, which supposedly justifies Screen Gems' weak decision to release a PG-13 film rather than an R-rated cut.

This one is forgotten by the time you throw your empty popcorn bucket into the trash cans conveniently located near the exits on your way out.

There's no suspense or perversity. You don't care who lives or who dies -- just please make it soon.

Even for the low expectations of this genre, Prom Night is gob-smackingly stupid.

This may not be one of the worst films of all time -- that's a pretty tough list to crack. But it is definitely one of the stupidest.

A PG-13 slasher film is something of an oxymoron, as tame propriety is fundamentally antithetical to the down-and-dirty genre.