Friday the Thirteenth meets Saturday Night Fever. Good and promising actors -- people who deserve a better film the next time -- are too numerous to name. [16 Aug 1980, p.D2]
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Chicago Tribune by Gene Siskel
A dreary, Carrie-type shocker about a high school student seeking to kill a bunch of classmates on their prom night. Very few thrills. [01 Aug 1980, p.10]
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Jay Scott
A slow-moving but otherwise efficient Canadian B-movie that gives the audience what it came for: blood and guts (the title, coincidentally, of Lynch's previous film). It is similar but inferior to Carrie, Halloween and When a Stranger Calls; it is similar but superior to Friday the 13th. [17 Sep 1980]
The New York Times by Vincent Canby
Prom Night is a comparatively genteel hybrid, part shock melodrama, like Halloween, and part mystery, though it's less a whodunit than a who's-doing-it.