Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2

 

Right out of the gate I'm going to say here that Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 has energy for days which is the polar opposite compared to the original Prom Night flick starring Jamie Lee Curtis. The intensity, electricity and vibes just seething off of the edges of this sequel are so strong that if you bother sitting through this one, you'll be damned if you try to look away. It's mesmerizing to say the least and I'm also going to state here that the special effects, gore and sexual levels of tension here reach heights that I really didn't expect them to go to, but then again this film was put out seven years later which is insane to think about and it shows because this entry is so far removed from the first one that it could have just been titled "Hello Mary Lou" or "The Burning of Mary Lou" or maybe even "Possessing A Killer Prom Queen" or anything to that effect and it probably still would have worked. But since I don't know anything about marketing or any sort of business line like that it was just slapped with Prom Night 2 as the sub-title to boost attention and sales at the time to lure in more potentially burgeoning horror fans and teens of the 80's. Get those asses in the seats. But what happens here in Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 is that in 1957 we have a high school prom commencing. There is a very naughty bad girl among the ranks named Mary Lou who loves to booze it up, lie, cheat on her boyfriend and is just a general wild child. Billy Nordham (Michael Ironside of all actors which I did not expect to be in a film like this) is in fact the boyfriend that Mary Lou is cheating on with some dude in a backroom of the high school during the dance and Billy is having none of it. Some jackass in the men's bathroom is preparing some kind of a handmade stink bomb of sorts to try and prank the dance-which ends up looking like a really shitty quarter stick of dynamite-tosses it in the trash because he was going to get caught be a teacher or the principal. Billy is in the bathroom while this takes place and takes it upon himself to climb the rafters with it, light it and drop it down on Mary Lou right as she's on stage accepting her crown as prom queen. The flames from the wick get out of control and burns her ass alive on stage in front of the whole school and she is presumed dead of course afterwards. Multiple decades later, Billy himself ends up being the principle for the very high school that he burned Mary Lou at, and now his own son is a senior there and is dating Vicki who is the daughter of a very strict, staunch catholic couple. Plenty happens in between getting ready for the prom and the ending where in the third act Mary Lou actually physically comes back in a brutal way where she is basically born out of Vicki's chest a la' Aliens style where she just bursts out and still is covered in third degree burns all over her body to terrorize everyone. I mentioned this before but the special effects here honestly are incredible and I'd really have to say my favorite scene in the entire film has to be the scene where after Vicki is possessed early in the film by Mary Lou, she follows her friend into the shower after gym class, they're both nude and she starts kissing her on the face which is already weird in and of itself, but then she stalks her through the area where the lockers are and she drags her nails along them slowly like Fred Krueger to create that insane screeching sound and then proceeds to literally crush all of the lockers together to kill her friend because she was hiding inside her locker so Vicki wouldn't be able to see her. Brutality at it's finest if you ask me. If I'm going to sit here and choose which of the first two Prom Night flicks is better, I'm choosing to burn Mary Lou with a handmade stink bomb all over again. This second entry honestly was a riot and I had a great time this morning with it. I've seen and rad other reviews about how this sequel surpasses the original in basically every way, and now that I've seen it myself I completely agree. Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 just sets the bar for the rest of the franchise so much higher that I'm now expecting them to be just as good if not better. Unfortunately I've been disappointed many times before and I just need to temper my expectations for part III. Who knows what level that one sits at. I'm crowning myself prom king because at this juncture it's the right thing to do.