A child dies after being chased out the window of an abandoned building by four other children. An unseen witness to the accident comes back years later looking for revenge, and heads roll. Literally.
The dead child, Robin Hammond, was the daughter of the high-school principal (Leslie Neilsen) and the sister of Kim (Jamie Lee Curtis). Robin also had a twin brother, Alex. Four children were present when Robin fell, but only one of them, Nick (Casey Stevens) suggests going for help. The other three -- Wendy (Eddie Benton), Kelly (Mary Beth Rubens), and Jude (Joy Thompson)-- make him swear never to reveal what happened. Robin's death is blamed on a psycho named Murch, whose car crashes while he is being pursued by police.
We see the Hammond family paying a visit to Robin's grave-site six years later. The anniversary of her death coincides with the date of Kim's senior prom. Buzzkill!
In the intervening years, Nick and Kim have become "involved". Nick is a sincere chap, but not sincere enough to tell Kim that he helped kill her sister, although he appears to toy briefly with the idea when Kim breaks down in tears about how the day of the prom is the anniversary of her sister's death. "It would have been her first prom," she sobs. "Uh, Kim..." says Nick, uncomfortably, before he wimps out and trots off to football practice.
Kim is also friends with Kelly and Jude, neither of whom seems to be bothered in the least by the dead sister..er, elephant in the room. As for Wendy, who has grown up to be the quintessential Rich Bitch Mean Girl, she doesn't care about anything but clothes, cars...and Nick.
Apparently, Nick broke up with Wendy to date Kim, and Wendy isn't taking it well. Wendy asks Lou (played with sullen, stupid menace by David Mucci) to help her get revenge. Lou -- one of the more fully realized characters in the film -- readily agrees; you get the feeling that his future includes an appearance on an episode of "Cops". When he arrives at Wendy's house to take her to the prom, he passes her a bottle of whiskey, belches, wipes his mouth, and says "You look terrific."
A shadowy figure with a guttural voice makes phone calls to Nick, Wendy, Jude, and Kelly, promising mayhem at the prom, but no one seems alarmed, even when Kelly and Jude find their yearbook pictures pinned in their lockers with shards of a broken mirror. Kim and Wendy meow and scratch at each other over Nick. Kelly agonizes over whether to let her boyfriend, Drew, go "all the way". Jude meets a short, frizzy-haired kid in a Chevy van; he calls himself "Slick" and asks her to the prom. At the prom, Wendy and Lou's entrance spurs Nick and Kim to hit the dance floor, where they twirl and prance in synchronized abandon to an aggressive disco beat.
In the background, the police skitter about looking for Murch, who, conveniently for the plot, has escaped from the local asylum in time to serve as the largest and smelliest in a series of red herrings. A creepily-mustached school janitor has also been offered up for suspicion. And all this before any blood is shed at all.
Kelly is the first to die, in a locker room, where she has gone to make out with Drew. When she refuses to do the deed, Drew stomps out to "...find someone who will!", leaving Kelly to sob "Drew, you bastard!" just before the killer sticks a shard of mirror through her windpipe.
Jude dies next. Slick's nerdy exterior conceals a van equipped with a bed and enough weed to knock out Cheech and Chong. As Jude and Slick toke up and giggle about losing their virginity to each other, the killer opens the back door of the van, slits Jude's throat, and dispatches Slick by forcing him to drive the van off a cliff.
Wendy is the only one of the victims who shows any gumption. Confronted by the ax-wielding killer, she kicks off her high heels, runs like a deer, and takes refuge in the school auto shop. The killer finds her when she attempts to hide in a closet and finds the still-warm body of poor, virginal Kelly hanging on the wall. Her screams give away her position and the ax falls shortly thereafter.
When Nick and Kim queue up to be crowned King and Queen of the prom, Lou and his goons grab Nick and tie him up. Lou puts on the crown and waits for his cue -- receiving instead an ax to the back of the neck. His head, with the crown at a rakish angle, rolls out onto the dance floor and grosses everyone out. Meanwhile, Kim has rescued Nick and the killer realizes he's decapitated the wrong guy. The killer grabs the ax and goes after Nick -- only to be disarmed by Kim, who smacks him in the head.
The women do all the heavy lifting in this film.
The killer staggers out the front door of the high school, whereupon Kim realizes who he is and tackles him before the police can shoot. She pulls off the killers' ski mask to reveal her brother, Robin's twin, Alex. It seems that Alex was at the school when Robin fell out the window, and has known all this time who was responsible. He dies in Kim's arms as the music swells.
A very large question arises from the ashes of this movie: If you were a little boy and someone pushed your twin sister out a window, wouldn't you run screaming home and tell your parents right away? And, failing that, wouldn't you feel compelled to tell your older sister she was dating one of the people responsible?
Just asking.
22 out of 25 found this helpful