Prom Night IV:
                  Deliver Us From Evil

Canada, 1992  

They ditched the prom for a private party. Now it's their last dance.

***

Directed by:  Clay Borris

Starring:  Nikki de Boer, Alden Kane, Joy Tanner, Alle Ghadban, Ken McGregor, Jimmy Carver, Brock Simpson, Kenneth McGregor, Phil Morrison, Krista Bulman, Fab Filippo 

Choice dialogue: 
“Forgive me father for all the fun I’m going to have tonight.” 

Slasher Trash with Panache?

Review: JA Kerswell

After the supernatural shenanigans of the last two sequels, PROM NIGHT (1980) got a belated true blood - if slightly unambitious - slasher follow-up in what proved to be the franchise’s swansong. After being locked away since a Lover’s Lane murder of two graduating students, a potty-mouthed killer priest escapes his chains 33 years later and returns to his old seminary - now a summer home - to hunt more sinning teenagers looking to spill semen. A passably enjoyable 90 minutes for lapsed Catholics everywhere.
 
In a lengthy prologue set in a rather unconvincing 1957, Brad (Phil Morrison) and Lisa (Krista Bulmer) skip the end of their prom night at Hamilton High (the high school featured in all the films in the series) and drive to a remote location to celebrate with some light frottage. Unfortunately for them, local priest Father Jonas (played by the appropriately named Jimmy Carver) has taken it upon himself to go after naughty teenagers. He tells a statue of Jesus: “Help me save the sluts and the whores!”. And by saving he means carving them up with a large dagger in the shape of a crucifix and setting fire to their car with church candles.
 
Understandably, the other clergy at St Basil Seminary aren’t too impressed with Father Jonas’ not-so-pastoral care of his wayward flock. Father Jaeger (Kenneth McGregor) is especially perturbed by the vicious vicar spontaneously displaying bleeding stigmata on his hands and feet. Not to mention flashing his pecs and six-pack and glistening torso in the candlelight like some demented Abercrombie and Fitch store greeter. Rather than declaring it a miracle, he orders him locked away from society.

Fast forward to the present day and newly ordained Father Colin (Brock Simpson - the only actor to appear in all four PROM NIGHT movies) is preparing for his mission to Africa. However, Father Jaeger - whose health is declining - has a different mission for him: to keep Father Jonas under lock and key. He shows him the cell that Jonas is kept inside; deep within a labyrinthine complex below their church only reached by a lift (I wonder if all churches have insane asylums for bonkers priests under them?). After Jaeger’s death, Colin tries to reach the catatonic Jonas - who now looks like Rasputin the Mad Monk - by not giving him a sedative. He shaves off his beard but leaves his ponytail for that early 90s on-trend look. And, lo and behold, Father Jonas hasn’t aged a day and still looks like an Italian male model who would appear as comfortable on the catwalks of Milan as he does stalking teens in a frozen Ontario. Presumably being locked away in candlelight does wonders for the skin. Colin realises his mistake when Jonas rises from his bed and garrotts him with a telephone cord. 

Meanwhile, two teen couples - Meagan (Nicole de Boer) and Mark (J.H. Wyman) plus Laura (Joy Tanner) and Jeff (Alle Ghadban) - decide to skip their prom at Hamilton High and head to Mark’s father’s remote summer house - which coincidentally happens to have previously been St Basil Seminary. Despite escaping on prom night, Father Jonas doesn’t start hacking his way through the partying kids at Hamilton High but heads for some r&r at his old haunt. Only to - in a case of sod’s law - find partying teens there instead in ‘need’ of his very lethal ways of saving souls …
 
On the face of it, it seems an odd decision to not have Father Jonas wreaking havoc across the dance floor and through the halls of Hamilton High. It was presumably budgetary considerations that limited the second half of the film to the isolated country house with its handful of potential victims. However, despite a bit of a lull during its middle, PROM NIGHT IV: DELIVER US FROM EVIL does actually deliver some slasher thrills in its closing third. The film plays with some interesting concepts around repression and guilt - not to mention the result of religious zealotry taken to its logical extremes and church coverups. Intended or not, it is seemingly an exaggerated commentary on the old have sex and die adage - this time through a Catholic lens. The film’s most memorable scene has Jonas crucify two characters and set fire to them on massive crucifixes - which he either knocked up in five minutes or found hanging around the summer house. The film also flirts with a supernatural angle, but never really commits to it. Father Jonas appears to be possessed of some special powers, but the film doesn't really explain why he has become an angel of death - although it suggests darker motivations driven by abuse. Although again it is something it neglects to expand on. 

Joy Tanner and Nikki De Boer in PROM NIGHT IV: DELIVER US FROM EVIL (1991)

BODY COUNT 8: 
Female 2 / Male 6

  1. Female has her throat slit
  2. Male is stabbed in the stomach
  3. Male is garrotted
  4. Male seen with his throat cut
  5. Male killed (method unseen)
  6. Male has his head crushed with bare hands
  7. Female is burnt to death on a crucifix
  8. Male is hit with a flying dagger



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Trailer for PROM NIGHT IV: DELIVER US FROM EVIL (1992)

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