Good story, Not enough for a whole film

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

"Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil" marks yet another turn in the "Prom Night" franchise, ditching the supernatural elements of the previous two entries in exchange for a more back-to-basics slasher formula that is not unlike the original. This time, however, it's a Catholic priest gone mad, with a sharpened crucifix in hand, who unleashes his wrath against a group of fornicators...err...high school kids who ditch their prom in lieu of a remote cabin where they can get down and dirty without anyone around to hear their screaming -- whether that's a good thing or not.Another direct-to-video installment, the fourth "Prom Night" is not of the highest quality, but at least delivers the goods on the most basic level. Slasher fans will appreciate its dead-pan approach, which is in stark contrast to the goofiness on hand in "Prom Night III: The Last Kiss." Father Jonas, the Catholic priest in question, is played stone-faced by James Carver and makes for an effectively brutal killer, even if he is overexposed by the film which doesn't allow him to lurk or stalk very much. The cast of teens, meanwhile, are just begging to be killed by Father Jonas, and with lines like "Shut up and take your pants off" who can say they didn't see it coming? Sure, it's a low-rent, dirty little horror movie, but at least it tries, and even when it doesn't succeed, "Prom Night IV" doesn't exactly suck, either. At the very least, this last entry in the series is more entertaining and exciting than the remake that would follow 17 years later.

In 1957 deranged and dangerous Catholic priest Father Jonas (excellently played with frightening intensity by James Carver) kills two fornicating teenagers. Thirty-three years later Father Jonas escapes from the cellar of the church he's been imprisoned in and returns to the monastery from his youth. Said monastery has been converted into a summer home where a pair of teenage couples go to celebrate prom night. Director Clay Borris and screenwriter Richard Beattie craft an extremely dark and twisted slice'n'dice body count fright feature that benefits substantially from a grimly serious tone, a creepy mood, a steady pace, several gory and nasty murder set pieces, a smidgen of steamy soft-core sex, a considerable amount of tension, and a brutal and harrowing last third. Better still, there's no silly disruptive humor to diminish the severity of the in-your-face harsh and unflinching horror; Father Jonas in particular registers strongly as one extremely scary and vicious dude. In addition, the brooding religious angle gives the picture an extra sick and subversive edge. Nicole de Boer makes for an appealing heroine as the sweet and virginal Meagan; she receives sound support from Alden Kane as Meagan's nice guy boyfriend Mark, Joy Tanner as shameless slut Laura, Alle Ghadbran as the equally brash Jeff, Brock Simpson as eager young priest Father Colin, and Fab Filippo as Mark's bratty peeping tom younger brother Jonathan. Rick Wincenty's polished, agile cinematography keeps the camera constantly moving and boasts a handful of fluid tracking shots. Paul Zaza's spooky'n'shuddery score likewise hits the skin-crawling spot. A superior slasher horror outing.

~Spoiler~ Here I thought Prom Night III was hard to sit through. Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil is the worst of the series. This time around the seniors of Hamilton High are stalked and killed by a vengeful priest with clear ideas about the wages of sin. I wish it were remotely as interesting as the premise suggests. This is yet another bad slasher that is devoid of any fun whatsoever, which is a key component of the slasher film. There are only two elements that all four Prom Night movies have in common. One is the setting of Hamilton High. The other is actor Brock Simpson. He's been in a four flicks and I thought he was about to have his meatiest role here. He plays a good priest who is in charge of keeping the bad priest imprisoned where he can't harm anyone. The filmmakers (dare I call them that) take time to establish the good priest as a character and even give him a little backstory about a possible one-time love interest. And then they kill him off and introduce cookie-cutter teens with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The film gets worse from there.

This is a slasher that plays it by the rules, so if I'm spoiling anything for you, it's because you've never seen a slasher movie before.Prom Night IV gives us the gift of slashing in a film that is lit with decent effectiveness, not shot notably poorly, with sub-par to decent acting and some moderately suspenseful scenes. The prom thing is more or less done in the intro, where we get to see a couple slashed in a prom in 1957. Our mad killer here is a Catholic priest gone horribly wrong--he kills with a cross where the long end has a blade.Our victims, two teenaged couples, are headed down to a retreat that used to be an old monastery for a weekend of debauchery. Meanwhile, a young priest newly charged with watching over the insane priest (who's been kept underground by the Church) is developed for a bit, but manages to slip in his duties. (Prom Night IV is very good at giving "bonus slashes" before it gets around to killing the teenagers.)The highlight of Prom Night IV is Nicole de Boer, who you might remember from The Cube or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (she was Ezri Dax). Her acting, which is pretty good, manages to elevate the rest of the movie (since she is the film's heroine). The rest of the cast is pretty small-time, though, and doesn't live up to Nicole.It does have the requisite T&A shots (and a really poor sex scene), to be certain, and it manages to fit 8 deaths into a film that only focuses on those 4 teens. All are pretty freaky and well done, too. Once the suspense starts, it's pretty good at not letting up, despite following the rules strongly. The extended scenes before the slasher starts on the teens build everything up quite well.This is a slasher movie, and you will enjoy it only if you're in the mood for one. However, it does what it does well, and as such is worth picking up if you are.