Hello Mary Lou....Goodbye Heart

Heading back into Prom territory after a week's hiatus, we see the ghostly side of Prom Horror.  Years after the first Prom Night took it upon itself to capitalize on the slasher craze, producer Peter Simpson decided to go back to the prom well for a sequel...however, it would be a sequel in name only.  It would seem that Prom Night's popularity didn't necessitate a reunion of the original surviving characters or a continuation of that killer's reign of terror, and with A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Exorcist, and Carrie becoming more popular due to supernatural plot elements...Simpson decided to make his sequel more supernatural.  So get ready to talk about Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II.

  It's 1957 and Mary Lou Maloney, the requisite wild girl and the easiest girl at Hamilton High, is a shoe in for prom queen.  However, when she jilts her date for another guy, her date decides to play a prank on her by dropping a stink bomb on her from above.  However, the prank goes horribly awry and Mary Lou ends up burning alive on stage.  30 years later, Vicki Carpenter...the nicest girl at Hamilton and also shoe in for Queen...begins having nightmares and hallucinations surrounding Mary Lou's death and, before long, she becomes possessed by the dead prom queen.  It seems that Mary Lou wants to get revenge on the people responsible for her death and plans to take the prom by storm.  You can be sure that by the end of this prom night, there will be a lot of bodies piled up on the dance floor.

If you haven't figured out, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II is a quick and dirty mash up of Carrie and The Exorcist with a healthy dose of A Nightmare on Elm Street thrown in in the hallucination scenes.  Sure, it smacks of rip off...but its also a helluva lot more entertaining than the first Prom Night.  The fantasy element and the addition of a witty and charismatic villain really helps juice up what could have been a dull and lifeless rehash of the first.  Mary Lou was so popular that they brought her back for another sequel, Prom Night III: The Last Kiss, but it wasn't nearly as fun as this first outing.  Plus, the story has a very ghost story feel to it...it really sounds like a legend that would circulate around schools nowadays...the prom queen who burned to death and came back for revenge.  It's really perfect.  Some of the deaths are pretty fun here too, and are mostly school related.  Death by hanging from ceiling fan?  Check.  Death by locker?  Check.  Death by neon light?  Ok, that one's not so school related...but still, check.  This movie has taken everything that was fun from 80s supernatural horror and thrown it in a blender.  Now if only modern horror homages were this much fun.  If you can't stand corny effects laden horror, then this definitely isn't for you.  But if you want to sit back and have a fun and campy time...you could do a whole lot worse.

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