Even though these are two movies with the same name they tell two entirely different stories. The first Prom Night was filmed in 1980 and stars Jamie Lee Curtis as Kim Hammond, Casey Stevens as Nick McBride, Michael Tough as Alex Hammond, Anne Marie Martin as Wendy Richards, Mary Beth Rubens as Kelly Lynch, Joy Thompson as Jude Cunningham, and Leslie Nielsen as Mr. Hammond.

The other Prom Night released in 2008 and stars Brittany Snow as Donna Keppel, Scott Porter as Bobby, Dana Davis as Lisa Hines, Jessica Stroup as Claire, Jonathan Schaech as Richard Fenton, James Ransome as Detective Nash, and Idris Elba as Detective Winn. The title and fact that both movies are slashers set at prom are the only things the two movies have in common. The more recent movie Prom Night is not a remake of Prom Night that came out in 1980. While both of these movies are slashers, they are wildly different from each other.

Prom Night (2008) starts with Donna being dropped off at home after being with her friend Lisa. This is when finds that her younger brother Joey has been killed and then she’s forced to watch the murder of her mother at the hands of her former teacher Richard Fenton as she’s hiding underneath a bed. He’s captured and sentenced to a maximum security prison for the criminally insane for murdering her family and Donna moves in with her aunt and uncle.

Three years later, Donna is a senior in high school and it’s the night of her senior prom. What she doesn’t know yet is that Richard Fenton escaped from the facility he was sentenced to for killing Donna’s parents and brother three days earlier. When Detective Winn learns of Fenton’s escape, he is on a race against time to find Richard Fenton and stop him from killing more people just to get to Donna. Unfortunately Fenton has a head start and happens to be at the same hotel where Donna’s prom is being held. By the end of the night Fenton kills multiple people including three of Donna’s friends and her boyfriend Bobby. With each murder that Fenton commits, we see just how obsessed he is with Donna.

Prom Night (1980) starts with four kids named Wendy, Jude, Nick, and Kelly playing a game inside of an abandoned building. Three young siblings, Robin, Kim, and Alex who are around the same age as their classmates playing in the building pass it on their way to school and Robin decides to go into it. What starts as a harmless game turns into something darker which ultimately leads to Robin dying after falling out of a window in an attempt to get away from the others. Instead of going to the police, the kids Nick, Jude, Wendy, and Kelly make a pact to never tell anyone what really happened that day.

After the scene where the girl Robin dies, the movie flashes forward six years. Nick, Jude, Wendy, and Kelly are now either juniors or seniors in high school and it’s the day of their prom. This is when the villain plans to get their revenge against them for Robin’s death. They aren’t the only ones with a plan for revenge though. Wendy has a plan to get revenge against Kim because she’s upset that Nick is taking Kim to the prom instead of her. Wendy’s plan ultimately fails because the killer murders Wendy and the guy who was helping her get revenge on Kim. The movie ends with Kim recognizing the killer is her brother Alex who collapses after he makes it outside to where everyone else has gathered after fleeing the gym.

The movie Prom Night from 1980 is different because the killer’s motive for killing people is revenge against the people they blame for the death of a girl named Robin that happened at an abandoned building six years before the main events of the movie. The killer remains a mystery for the majority of this film due to the fact that they wear a mask to keep their identity a secret. I like that though because then the viewers are left to figure out who the killer is which adds to the suspense of everything that is happening.

I prefer Prom Night from 2008 because I feel that it has a better plot and the characters are more developed than the characters in Prom Night from 1980. Have you seen either (or both) of these movies and if so, which one do you prefer?