Sifting through Eighties slashers is like being a junk-wax baseball card collector. A lot of it is garbage, but rare gems exist such as the No Name Frank Thomas or the F*** Face Billy Ripken. Even the gems are defined by their flaws, but the fascination of those flaws is what counts.
Among Eighties slashers that aren’t mentioned in your average aficionado’s first breath but are nonetheless great are “Amityville II: The Possession” (1982) and “Sleepaway Camp” (1983), and now I must add “Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II” (1987). Distinguishing factors in these hidden gems are writers and directors (on this Edmonton production, Ron Oliver and Bruce Pittman) who don’t know they’re supposed to be cranking out garbage, so they mistakenly care about the material.
Pittman and Oliver break a rule right up front – hopping subgenres from serial-killer mystery to supernatural horror – but get away with it thanks to winning performances and creative practical effects. “Hello Mary Lou” has a core trait of an amateur effort – introducing a dozen elements and being indecisive about what to focus on – yet is so earnest that it ends up being a fun roller-coaster.
“Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II” (1987)
Director: Bruce Pittman
Writer: Ron Oliver
Stars: Wendy Lyon, Lisa Schrage, Michael Ironside
This week, RFMC looks at the films of the “Prom Night” saga.
The lamb and the lion
It’d be nothing without its two lead actresses, though. Wendy Lyon, as Vicki, sometimes has the cuteness of a Christina Ricci type, but the film often is shot in too ugly of a fashion for us to notice; still, she’s a fine Everygirl.
Despite having less screen time, Lisa Schrage is even more important as Mary Lou, because her hilarious promiscuousness in the cold open (including writing “For a good time, call …” inside a confessional) sets up the narrative. In 1957, Mary Lou takes a nice guy to the prom for the sake of getting jewelry, then as soon as his back is turned, takes her desired conquest behind the stage for extracurriculars. “Use ’em and leave ’em” is her method.
“Hello Mary Lou” is built on a firm pile of scraps more so than a professional foundation. But it holds up just the same. We have the supernatural return of Mary Lou, whose spirit is unleashed from a locked case in the theater’s costume room. We have the “Exorcist”-on-the-cheap religious tropes of the now-adult men who feel guilty about Mary Lou’s death — Michael Ironside’s Bill, the principal; and Richard Monette’s Cooper, a priest.
We have a possession story that allows Lyon go from a placeholder Final Girl to an amusing body-swap performance, complete with the cliché of Mary Lou being stuck on 1957 fashions and slang. We have additional random comedy, like Kelly (Terri Hawkes) being flabbergasted that no guy has asked her to the prom even though she treats them all like crap.
We have unapologetically “Nightmare on Elm Street”-influenced practical effects. Vicki is pulled into a blackboard, and although the artists obviously composited a swimming pool shot over the blackboard, I admire the DIY workaround.
You’ll want to keep this prom date
“Hello Mary Lou” continues the saga’s inevitable “Carrie” trope of a Big Event on the prom stage, but reshuffles the order. The tragedy happens in the cold open, and we revel in the aftermath while building up to a possible repeat at the 1987 prom — which, as a bonus to modern viewers, truly captures the era. Yes, the gym-turned-dance-hall features neon and synth. But since this isn’t throwback nostalgia, there’s also ugly hairstyles and fashions and a gray-and-brown drabness to everything outside the bubble of neon and synth.
Since the film’s second prom must be bigger, the filmmakers wisely turn to their practical effects team, and we get a proto-“The Substance” moment.
“Hello Mary Lou” is fast-moving and schizophrenic, yet produces should-be-classic moments, always just a little too short of perfect to be preserved in the mainstream canon. In a memorable sequence, the possessed Vicki pretends to apologize to Monica (Beverley Hendry).
Since she’s actually Mary Lou, “Vicki” has no boundaries and it almost becomes a lesbian shower scene (unheard of in the Eighties slasher code), leading to a bizarre overreaction of fear by Monica. A gratuitously nude chase is capped by ingenious gore involving supernaturally compacted lockers.
That’s the movie in a nutshell: a whiplash between good and bad, cliched and clever, stupid and way-more-entertaining-than-it-should-be. “Prom Night” (1980) is the more watched film, since it’s the first one and it features Jamie Lee Curtis. But count “Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II” as a sequel that’s safely (albeit insanely) better than the original.