PROM NIGHT: Original 1980 Motion Picture Soundtrack
Music by Carl Zittrer and Paul Zazz
Released by Perseverance Records
Paul Lynch’s PROM NIGHT remains one of the great 80’s slasher films, boasting a rare combination of genuinely suspenseful stalk-and-kill set pieces and well-cast, sympathetic characters. It was crafted to join the bandwagon of the post-HALLOWEEN horror craze while cashing in on the disco movie fad following SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. The climax memorably combines the two disparate genres as a rather splendid decapitation results in the victim’s head dropping on to the disco runway while the music never stops. Nothing can kill D-I-S-C-O! The ever resilient Jamie Lee Curtis – about to discover that the grief-wracked mystery killer is her own tormented brother – whacks the masked antagonist with his own axe to save her boyfriend while “Love Me Till I Die” blares on the relentless soundtrack. D-I-S-C-O never dies! In America, horror was already reaching over-saturation point at the cinemas, with PROM NIGHT overshadowed by the mighty FRIDAY THE 13TH – though it earned the title of highest grossing Canadian horror film of 1980 by some margin.
While we have been inundated with releases on various formats for different instalments of the FRIDAY THE 13TH, HALLOWEEN and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series, a complete and official PROM NIGHT soundtrack release has eluded fans for decades. A Japanese LP release and various bootlegs have come and gone, but this release from producer / long term fan Silvio Barretta (with liner notes by Gergely Hubai and awesome cover art courtesy of Max Spragovsky) is the first complete, official release of the movie’s song-score, alongside assorted unused cuts.
Composers Carl Zittrer and Paul Zaza had worked together on Bob Clark’s well-liked MURDER BY DECREE a year earlier, with Zittrer himself a regular Clark collaborator and the man behind the unforgettably eerie score for BLACK CHRISTMAS. Zaza would become the go-to-guy for Canadian horror in the 80’s, subsequently composing the scores for MY BLOODY VALENTINE, AMERICAN NIGHTMARE and all three (alas, disco-less) PROM NIGHT sequels – alongside Clark’s teen box office smash PORKY’S. The music they created for PROM NIGHT was pretty unique for the genre – the first half of the movie is pervasive orchestral menace accompanying Lynch’s steady build-up of suspense, before the second half both amps up the bodycount and the disco beat. Commissioned to create songs that sounded a lot like (but not, legally, too much like) the famous disco hits the actors were dancing to on screen, the musicians came up with a bunch of tunes with similar vocal arrangements, drum patterns, mixing techniques and infectious melodies.
Reflecting the movie’s structure, the first half of this CD release consists of around 13 minutes of the original score: “Opening” sets the tone with its string-based ominousness and suspense techniques – the orchestral approach bringing it closer to Bernard Herrmann and Harry Manfredini than the wave of synth soundtracks following in the footsteps of John Carpenter. “Prom Night Cello Theme” has a subtle sense of threat, while the low throb of “Killer Tension” and muted creepiness of “Piano Theme” sustain the imposing mood – with a little respite in the laidback sax whimsy of “Beach Flashback”. A further dozen tracks of unused score (mostly clocking in at less than a minute) offer more of the same – though the wonderfully eerie “Haunting Robin” is three minutes of oppressive menace and the best track of the whole score.
You also, of course, get all six original songs from the film, comprising “Dancin’ In the Moonlight” (don’t worry, it’s not the Toploader one); the gloriously Gloria Gaynor-esque “Love Me Till I Die” (basically “I Will Survive” ran through a special Avoid Lawsuits Song Generator); the repetitive signature track “Tonight Is Prom Night” (the one that’s been stuck in your head for at least 30 years); the slightly creepy “Changes” and the forgettable “Time To Turn Around”. The finale is the haunting ballad “Fade to Black” – oddly the name of another 1980 slasher and a haunting accompaniment in the film to Curtis’ discovery of the killer’s identity as the credits roll. A further six unused songs include the imaginatively titled instrumental “Another Disco Funk Track” and -for all the cool kids out there – the marvellous “Funk Dat Disco”.
For fans of the movie, this is a must – the combo of sinister orchestral stylings and Donna Summer / Bee Gees-inspired shape-throwing grooveathons providing a massive nostalgia rush and reviving that old yearning to have hair like 1980 Jamie Lee. For everyone else, you might get tired of the word “baby” but won’t be able to resist the wonderfully named “Disco Out the Back Door”, which sounds like the ultimate 70’s ode to explosive flatulence.
Track Listing
Score
· Opening
· Killer’s Call List
· Tearing Up Yearbook
· Beach Flashback
· Prom Night Cello Theme
· Killer Tension
· Prom Night Suspense Theme
· Piano Theme
· Hallway Chase
· Haunting Robin
· Calm Before the Storm
· Caught in the Web
· Eerie
· Escape
· Hunted
· Lurking
· Quivering
· Trapped
· Who’s There
· Vertigo
· Waiting
· Mystery Build
Songs
· Dancin’ in the Moonlight
· Love Me Till I Die
· Tonight is Prom Night
· Changes
· Time To Turn Around
· Fade to Black (End Credits Song)
· Prom Night
· Disco Out the Back Door
· You Can Be What You Want To Be
· Another Disco Funk Track
· Funk Dat Disco
· Burnin’ With Desire
Review by Steven West