Forgotten Sequels: Prom Night 3

I bet some of you did not even know that there was a Prom Night 2, let alone a third film.  I'm really going to blow your mind when I tell you that there is a fourth film too, won't I?  As for the second film, I have plans regarding a review of that.  More on that subject in the future.  Let's talk about this third film in the series though and whatever is supposed to be.  The original Prom Night is a Halloween knock-off, while the second film drifts off into a weird, random path.  This movie is supposed to be a successor to that one, but ignores nearly everything about that film, save for the bare bones of the premise.  It also is a great example of The Evil Dead Effect, but fails to follow through with it.  What you are left with is a movie with an identity crisis and no clear goal in mind.  Does it still work though?  Find out in my review of...

Prom Night 3: The Last Kiss

The film begins in Hell, although it has neither Satan nor random naked people.  Why did you lie to me, the Bible and Jose Mojica Marins!  Mary-Lou escapes from Hell by cutting her chains with a nail file and just walks out.  It's really that easy?  She comes out through a jukebox right from the 'Faith' video that suddenly appears in a High School and kills the janitor.  The next day, we are introduced to our heroes.  One of them is a dorky High School student and the other is his preppy girlfriend.  At the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new gymnasium, the principal accidentally cuts one of his fingers off!  Does Mary-Lou make him do it?  Not according to the way the scene was framed, so why did that just happen?  Is he just an idiot?  The movie just sort of moves on, so I will too.  Our hero is bothered by the idea that he is average in every way, which is pretty low on the scale of problems one could have.  You know, some people have divorced parents, birth defects or learning disabilities!  After a bad date with his lady friend, he runs into Mary-Lou's ghost at the school.  To make a long story short, they make whoopee.  In the morning, he lives out a cliched nightmare by having to run through the hallways wearing only an American flag.

*

The movie gets pretty weird from here on out.  Our hero begins to see Mary-Lou everywhere, which leads to some 'wacky' costume changes for the ghostly woman.  By the way, this lady does not even hold a candle to Mary-Lou from Prom Night 2, but she does try.  As people in our hero's life cause him trouble, Mary-Lou kills them.  They take place in what feel like weird dream sequences and often make little sense.  They don't really explain how she is able to do that as a ghost, but I guess we're just supposed to go with it.  In addition, her deaths are very elaborate and seem to involve lots of planning.  Between gaining new, random powers and having sex with our hero, how does she have time for that?  She also helps him win a football game, which makes a jock jealous.  He mostly just mopes about it for a while, but finally summons his inner 'Zabka' and confronts our hero.  Of course, by this point, he has regressed to acting cool (i.e. wearing a Fonzie jacket) and burying the bodies of Mary's victims.  One football-themed death later and our hero has another body to bury.  Unfortunately, he buried all of them on the football field and they get discovered.  This can't end well.

*

Life turns even worse for our hero as Mary-Lou impersonates his sister and kills his best friend.  She does this by punching his heart out of his chest, which raises more questions about her powers!  He gets arrested, but decides to take advice from the hero in Jason Goes To Hell & breaks out.  During all of this, his lady ends up going to the prom with the nerdy guy who works with her on the Student Council.  He is a nice guy, but has quirky aspects to him, so he is a terrible person.  He gets killed by Mary-Lou since...um, he was going out with the girl who used to date the object of her obsession.  Wouldn't it be easier for her if the girl ended up with someone else?  Do ghosts use logical progression and common sense?  Anyhow, Mary-Lou attacks the girl, but our hero shows up in time.  He makes a deal with the ghost: take me and leave her alone.  Mary opens up a portal to Hell...which she recently escaped from him...and to her own Prom.  I would ask about Mary-Lou's ability to open Hell portals, but I stopped caring by this point.  The girl jumps through the portal in pursuit and has to fight off the people that died earlier.  I should mention that some of them were killed mere minutes earlier, proving that Hell has a short waiting list.  She succeeds and attempts to escape with a car.  They attempt to run down Mary-Lou, but she teleports them to 1954 and kills the girl.  She can do that too?!? The End.

*

This movie is not good.  It tries to be a wacky comedy, but cannot commit to it.  The death scenes are bizarre and gory.  However, the movie treats death as serious, while also doing 'bits' about our hero having to bury Mary-Lou's victims.  There are some genuinely-funny lines, the best of which is his girlfriend's explanation of how she bakes when she is angry.  Of course, they take this joke and run into the ground by the end.  Ultimately, this movie is merely sub-par.  If you have not seen Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2, this might be something that you could forgive.  For series completists, however, you can see a dramatic drop in quality.  The fact that this movie was released direct-to-video and not in theaters should tell you something.  You can do better than this movie, which I'm sorry to say.

*

Up next, another forgotten sequel is on the agenda.  This one involves robots, soldiers and Gary Busey.  Don't get your hopes up, guys.  Stay tuned...