A night to remember

Oh prom, the time in every teenagers life when the innocence of childhood is slowly coming to a close. With adulthood on the horizon, prom night has become a night to remember for the rest of your life. If you’re the teens at Hamilton High School in the 1980 Paul Lynch slasher Prom Night, then I’m sure you will have no trouble forgetting that magical night.

Our story begins six years prior, where we find a group of kids playing an appropriate game of hide and seek called, the killer is coming, in an old abandon, what looks like a hospital. One of the girls, Robin Hammond, is bullied and falls from a window on the second floor to her untimely death. The kids make a pact that they will never speak of this again, and her killer goes on to be a mystery to the police. Six years later, on the anniversary of her death, we find that her older sister Kim Hammond (Jamie Lee Curtis) a now high school senior and her twin brother Alex Hammond (Michael Tough) a now junior, are getting ready to attend the prom that evening. We are then introduced to the grown up versions of all of the children responsible Robin’s death, when they receive eerie phone calls and messages throughout the day alluding that someone outside of the pact knows what happened. This formula paved the way for a lot of the who done it killer mysteries that have gone on to live in infamy (a la I Know What You Did Last Summer).

What I have learned in researching costuming on low budget movies such as this, often times there are no specific costume designers, the credits usually go to the Wardrobe Supervisor/assistant. All of the pieces on screen are of the era the movie is set in and can be shopped. Kathleen Moyer is listed in the credits as the Wardrobe Supervisor, which means this woman was wearing all the hats with the help of her assistant Constance Buck. My assumption on a film like this is that they actually took principle characters shopping with them, which means they had some input in the final look of their characters. Now this doesn’t happen in theatre but I have seen a few cases of this in film. As an actor that has to be thrilling, as a designer I can tell you that sounds like hell. The extra’s were all dressed from a Canadian clothing company called Fairweather, that is still in operation today. Although the school was done up to make it look like a high school in Ohio (which is horror movie code for the “everyplace” as also of horror movies take place in the Midwest), this film was actually shot in Toronto and is in the classification of Canadian 80’s Slashers, along with films such as My Bloody Valentine. Julia Petrov and Gudrun D. Whitehead go in depth about these cluster of films in their book Fashioning Horror; Dressing to Kill on Screen and in Literature.(I love this book and it was the catalyst for me to start this blog, so I highly recommend.) While they go in-depth into Prom Night in their book, they are doing it under the guise and topic of masks, and while I will touch upon them in further researched posts, for what I am doing here they were the surface from where I dug further.

1980 was actually a great time for formal wear. Coming off the 70’s you had a few different movements of style that were each playing side by side with each other, disco, prairie, some left overs of the hippie movement. This was the era where you really start to see individualism and those distinguished style groups that are still in effect today. Just think of each character from That 70’s Show, they are a great display of contrasting styles literally side by side. As more women entered the work force, fought for more rights, and became more prominent in male dominated spaces so to the clothing became about the woman’s right to chose how she framed her body. We see that example in the women we meet in this story. Kim, is head strong and tough but remains feminine and still soft. She is a fighter, who saves her prom date from being axed, but brings the killer compassion after finding out that he is in fact her younger brother Alex seeking revenge for the death of his twin. She is seen in a delicate pink calf length dress with a removable shawl. The dress itself has a square neckline, which highlights her feminine features but still keeps her modest as to not be to revealing of a dress, a contrast to her we see in Wendy’s dress. Prior, pink was looked at as a color adorned by little boys and men. Being used heavily in linen leisurewear and sportswear for the rich. Dyes became synthetic in the mid earlier part of the 20th century, and by 1931 famed Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli created a new shade titled Shocking Pink which became synonymous with womanhood. By 1940 pink had been branded a female color and ushered in the latter half of the century strong*. Just like the “pussy hats” at the women’s marches of today, pink became a color or strength within the women’s lib movement. It is only fitting that a women who is both delicate and strong, such a Jamie Lee Curtis, is in this pink dress. Fighting bad guys and tearing up the dance floor, because the theme of the prom after all is “An Evening of Disco Madness”.

In contrast to Kim we see Wendy (Anne-Marie Martin), the mean girl who comes up with the plan in their youth to keep their involvement in Robins murder a secret. When we meet her today she is smoking, she is mouthing off to (who I thought was her grandmother, until this most recent viewing when the credits say housekeeper), she drives a hot and fast sports car, and is trying to steal Nick (Casey Stevens) away from Kim. While not as outward as other slashers of the day she fits into the mold of someone who will be killed off, because she is vice. Her dress is the perfect reflection of that. Deep red, slinky strapped dress with a deep neckline, highlighting her cleavage and the curves of her waist. The bodice of the dress is sequined and catches the light in this film with ease, she is a girl that wants to be seen, a handkerchief cut to the skirt creates the perfect draping and movement. Kim is the only character out of our main four that we see in this plunging neckline. The other girls who meet their unfortunate demise Kelly (Mary Beth Rubens) and Jude (Joy Thompson) have the same square neckline as Kim. Kelly is killed in a way that makes her the sacrificial virgin. Her dress and bolero are pure white, and her corsage is that of baby’s breath. She is trying to fight off the handsy attempts of her boyfriends sexual advantages the whole movie, and when she finally has the courage to stand up to him and say no, after a steamy locker room hookup, she is our first one to die. Red blood splattered all over white is a very poetic image, when we later see her dangling from a shelf in the storage closet Wendy tries to take refuge in. Jude is seen in another innocent color, a powered blue ruched dress. While she too begins this film a virgin, she is so desperately seeking acceptance to fit in and to just go to the prom with a guy. Cue Seymour (Sheldon Rybowski) who rolls up his creepy van to hit on Jude on her walk to school. He offers her a ride and then asks her to prom, in my opinion any guy who slows his car down to try to sweet talk me would not get a date. But they then sneak away from prom back to the van for a quick van smoosh and while toking up the back doors to the van opens, Jude falls back and the killer slices her throat. In an incredible chase scene with Seymour, his car, and the killer, the car is pushed off the bluff and explodes on impact. The killer jumping out of the van at the perfect time.

We cannot talk about disco fashion with out highlighting the famous leisure style suit worn by Nick. That powder blue three piece (traditional leisure suits are simply a matching jacket and pants with a complementing shirt) made of polyester, because in the 70’s everything was polyester. I want to applaud him for wearing that and completing a full out dance number without looking as if he broke a sweat. Now through the dance break he is sans jacket, but there are no pit stains at all on his shirt; kudos. Also kudos to the wardrobe department because washing formal wear is not small feat, and I have to give a shout out to laundering because it is the unsung hero of our business. Nick is the only one who avoids being killed because a horny bully by the name of Lou (Dave Mucci) who has spent a bulk of his day, what I like to call “Biffing” (When a bully like Biff Tanen from Back to the Future proceeds to continuously manhandle the girl he is lusting after, after repeatedly being told no, I am also aware that this movie came out 5 years after Prom Night but it is the most famous example) steps in during the Prom King and Queen procession to try to win Kim back. The killer thinking it is Nick, lobs Lou’s head off in a spectacular fashion, and goes tumbling down the runway. As the lights reflect off of all the glitter in the room, his severed head is there to stair down his classmates and finally revealing that there is a killer on the loose. Lou’s death was just an accident and he was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time but after seeing how he has treated Kim and others throughout the film and then has the nerve to wear jeans to prom, I’m not saying he had it coming but…. My own prom date worn jeans to prom, and while his head still remains on his body I cannot help but look back at my photos and cringe, for that choice and many others.

Kathleen and Constance had a lot of work cut out for them (pun intended) when it came to costuming this film. While I couldn’t find any interviews with them, they both have credits in Wardrobe and designing that follow Prom Night. Kathleen even went on to work with Cronenburg on Videodrome. These women, just like girls every year, picked the perfect prom dress for the occasion. They really understood each character and took the story forward, because you cannot have a movie about prom without the formal wear that the night entails. This movie, in part to Jamie Lee Curtis (which I can assure you this won’t be the last time you read about her on here), has easily become one of my favorite 80’s slashers. It’s funny, there’s a mystery to it, and all around watch after watch the story still holds up. Plus there is a 5 minute dance break in it with matching disco songs to the theme of the movie Love Me Till I Die and Prom Night, I am currently on the hunt for the vinyl soundtrack so that I too can have an evening of disco madness.

*Curious for a deeper look in Elsa Schiaparelli or the color pink? Follow the links to Dressed; the History of Fashion a fashion history podcast by Cassidy Zachary and April Calahan