Brittany Snow (Hairspray) stars as a high school senior looking forward to the year’s biggest dance in the new version of Prom Night directed by Nelson McCormick. In reality, Snow missed her own prom night because she was busy working on the TV series American Dreams. On the set of Prom Night Snow recalled how the TV version of a prom had to substitute for the real thing. “I actually went to my prom on American Dreams in the '60s, which was really fun, I guess, in like a '60s prom dress and everything. But I never got to go back to my real prom. I had like a graduation sort of party with my 10 best girlfriends back home in Florida. We had sort of like an end of high school...like your little group of friends has kind of like an end of the year party, a grad party. So that was kind of my prom.”
Snow stars as Donna Keppel, a pretty and popular student who lost her mom, dad, and younger brother three years earlier. Her family was murdered by Richard Fenton (Johnathon Schaech), a teacher totally obsessed with his perky blonde student. Donna survived the attack by hiding, and her testimony helped send Fenton to an insane asylum. But now he’s escaped and looking for the girl of his psychotic dreams.
Snow didn’t take the decision to star in the new Prom Night lightly. “This was definitely something that I had to really think about and kind of weigh all my options, because I never wanted to do a teen horror film that kind of was, you know, not something that I could kind of dig my teeth into or be challenging, or just kind of one of those very basic teen horror movies where there's like the killer, and then they go after all the young teenagers and it's the stereotypical thing. I kind of never wanted to do that. But then after meeting with Nelson McCormick, like a few times, talking over the script with him and kind of sharing my ideas and what he thought for the movie and his changes to the script and how it was different from the original and what he was thinking, I was really, really interested,” explained Snow. “This was a story that is so based on...what the psychology is of like the killer, and not necessarily just him racking up a body count, or him just killing people for no reason. It's actually like a very smart story of a guy really obsessed with this girl, and loves her, which I kind of liked, which it wasn't so, you know, one-dimensional.”
“So the first Prom Night was, of course, a classic. And you know I respect that, and I love that we're kind of using that to create something else. I think we're very lucky that we got to do that. But I do like that this is a little bit more updated version of something that I think, you know, has the same theme, of course. You know, prom and coming of age and stuff like that, so it works.”
Snow didn’t have to wear out her vocal cords starring in Prom Night. Unlike most horror movie heroines, Snow didn’t have to scream her way through the film. “My character doesn't really scream ever in the movie. It's really weird - everybody else kind of does. But the thing with my character is that Fenton just really wants to love me and be with me and kiss me and hug me, because he just kind of wants to be with Donna. And so our relationship is very twisted in the way of he was my teacher, and so yes, he did kill my whole family, but I know that he doesn't want to really hurt me. So it's this very cat and mouse game of deciding what I'm going to do and how I can use his obsession with me to my advantage, and not trying to freak out and blow the whole thing because then he can turn on me.”
Snow loved her ‘60s wardrobe in Prom Night with the exception of her shoes. They didn’t actually fit her feet and she was forced to be strapped into them so they wouldn’t come off when she was running for her life from a crazed killer. Doing her own stunts proved to be a bit of problem in prom attire and shoes that were too big. “I have fallen three times,” said Snow. “All of which were times where I was being chased by, you know, Fenton the killer. We were just doing the scene, me and Johnathon, and it was just us. I had to do kind of my own stunts of like throwing this lamp in front of him and running around. And I was running so fast and I'm crying and I'm freaking out that he's coming after me. My dress went down on the floor and I actually stepped on my dress, and so it slipped out from under me. I slid like baseball, like a home run slide right into the door - the closed door. I hit my shin and I was bleeding. …And then I did it two takes later, and I did the exact same thing again! They had it on playback, doing it in slow motion, of me being like, "Nooooo...," sliding in or whatever. And everyone's laughing. I was like, ‘Yeah, real funny! I'm like bleeding.’”
That bit of bad luck could make the blooper reel, although the DVD release will probably be crowded with outtakes and bloopers. According to Snow, it was a crazy set. “I heard that making a horror movie or a thriller is always the most fun because it's just such a tough storyline that when it's not rolling, you have so much fun. And it has definitely been the case because I have never laughed so hard doing anything. The cast that I'm working with and the people, the actors who are playing my best friends, we've become so close. We just are hysterical, like laughing every single second. So it's been a really, really fun time for sure.”
