“Places to go, people to kill!”

Justin’s rating: Ironic Murders 101

Justin’s review: Sometimes horror movies have the absolute coolest posters, don’t they? The amazing variations of Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II were the deciding factor to make me buckle down and watch this ’80s slasher. A vengeful ghost girl busting out of a locker with enough backlight for a heavy metal concert looked totally boss — and probably set the bar very high.

As this pseudo-sequel (it was originally The Haunting of Hamilton High before the studio jammed it into the Prom Night franchise), Hello Mary Lou focuses on the tragic tale of its titular character. Mary Lou (Lisa Schrage) was a promiscuous girl in the ’50s who was crowned prom queen, only to die immediately as her jilted ex-boyfriend accidentally set her on fire. With a stink bomb tossed down from the rafters. That’s about the least cool way to perish.

Mind you, absolutely nobody — current boyfriend included — rush to save her. It’s just like, “Oh hey, free intermission show, let’s watch the fireworks!” And apparently there’s no follow-up investigation into this case of manslaughter with dozens of eye witnesses, because Mary Lou’s tiara and cloak (both undamaged by this raging inferno) are packed away inside a steamer trunk in the school attic with her angry spirit in tow.

Now this trunk must be better at holding in specters than the Ghostbusters’s ecto-containment unit, because Mary Lou seemingly can’t get out for three decades. I hope for her sake that she got wifi or radio signals in there.

Flash-forward to the late ’80s, and the girls at this school are obsessing about prom dates, prom dresses, and who might win the top honor. Among these is Vicki (Wendy Lyon), a teen with a terrible hairdo who uncovers Mary Lou’s old doodads — which, I should remind you, she only owned for about 30 seconds before she died — inadvertently unleashing the ghost.

Mary Lou begins to possess Vicki, causing her to say, see, and do things very out of the ordinary. She starts to become a loose cannon at school and home, all while being drawn into these surreal alternate world scenes. These scenes are very much like Nightmare on Elm Street, one of several classic horror movie inspirations that the writers leverage. I absolutely loved these dreamlike bits, from a nightmarish cafeteria to a a chalkboard that becomes a raging whirlpool.

Other homages point to The Exorcist and Carrie, which are admirable role models when dealing with poltergeists, overbearing religious mothers, and priests with troubled pasts. It’s a fun mash-up between these three films, and it works, especially to pull out some very surreal moments. I mean, when your rocking horse starts laughing at you, it’s probably time to move out of your room or start splashing everything with holy water.

The possessed Vicki ends up targeting teen and adult alike, including Mary Lou’s two former boyfriends, with Jedi-like powers. One is Michael Ironside as the school principal and same guy who killed this girl, and the other is Richard Monette as the priest and the same guy who was shown cowering at fire instead of running for an extinguisher or a glass of water.

I know I said that this was a slasher, but Prom Night II is as much a supernatural revenge tale and teen drama film. This isn’t just a series of clever murders (I mean, it is in parts) but also an exploration of vengeance and lingering guilt. There’s actual effort made to explore the mystery of why all of this is happening and give us some very memorable special effects sequences.

This is crazy, weird, and darkly funny — a movie operating with no safety restraints. In a decade where teen horror movies were engaged in a constant battle of one-upmanship, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II scrabbled to the top of the heap… if for a brief, glorious moment.

Intermission!

• Ah you had to work that “Hello Mary Lou” song into the opening, didn’t you?
• “This rock and roll will never last.”
• You’d think SOMEONE would try to put out the fire, but no, they all just cower
• Potatoes deserve long speeches and sunglasses
• Lots of schools have packed attics with haunted steamer trunks
• Did Michael Ironside ever have a full head of hair?
• Just when you think she’s going to get the paper cutter, nope, it’s supernatural hanging
• The priest still has a shrine to Mary Lou? Let it go, man!
• The nightmare cafeteria is cool
• The picture that changes entirely and the horse that moves
• Dang, that was one power slap
• The chalkboard whirlpool was a neat bit of cinematography
• “Who says ‘swell’ anymore?”
• Death by locker squishie
• Not a lot of good parents in this movie, let’s just say
• She spent $64 on her hair
• She’s got computer powers now? She didn’t even know what a computer was in the ’50s!
• How many prom queens is this guy going to kill?
• The MARY LU 2 license plate