Okay, fellow tapeheads, let's rewind to a time when the sequel wasn't always quite the sequel you expected. Remember shuffling through the horror section, the lurid covers promising untold terrors? You might have grabbed Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II, expecting more Jamie Lee Curtis-style disco-slasher vibes, only to pop the tape in and find… something else entirely. Something wilder, weirder, and honestly, maybe even more fun. Forget the straightforward revenge plot of the 1980 original; this 1987 entry throws supernatural chaos, vengeful spirits, and gloriously gooey 80s effects into a blender, hitting puree.
### Not Quite the Reunion We Planned
Right off the bat, let's clear the air: this film's connection to the original Prom Night is about as solid as tracking on a well-worn rental tape. Originally developed as a standalone script called The Haunting of Hamilton High, the producers slapped the Prom Night name on it late in the game purely for brand recognition – a classic video store era move! Directed by Bruce Pittman and penned by Ron Oliver, it ditches the whodunit slasher angle for a full-blown supernatural revenge story that feels more indebted to Carrie and A Nightmare on Elm Street than its namesake.
The setup is pure retro gold: back in 1957, bad girl Mary Lou Maloney gets crowned prom queen, only to meet a fiery end thanks to a stink bomb prank gone horribly wrong, courtesy of her jilted boyfriend, Billy. Flash forward thirty years, and Hamilton High is prepping for another prom. Enter Vicki Carpenter (Wendy Lyon), a sweet, unassuming student who stumbles upon Mary Lou's long-lost trunk of treasures in the school's costume storage. Big mistake. Soon, Vicki finds herself possessed by Mary Lou's vengeful spirit, hell-bent on reclaiming her crown and getting bloody revenge on Billy (Michael Ironside), who, in a delicious twist of fate, is now the school principal.
### When Practical Effects Ruled the School
What follows is a glorious explosion of spectral mayhem, powered entirely by the kind of practical effects that made late-night viewings on a fuzzy CRT so memorable. Forget slick, weightless CGI; Hello Mary Lou delivers the tangible goods. Mary Lou’s ghostly powers manifest in increasingly bizarre and often physically impossible ways that just wouldn't feel the same rendered digitally. Remember the scene with the possessed rocking horse in the school workshop? The sheer physicality of it, the palpable threat – that was pure practical ingenuity, likely born from a modest Canadian production budget that forced creative solutions. Filmed primarily in Edmonton, Alberta, the crew stretched every dollar to deliver maximum visual impact.
And the kills! While not relentlessly gory, they have a creative, dream-like (or nightmare-like) quality. The sequence involving the computer and the locker turning into a watery void, or the infamous chalkboard scene... these moments relied on clever camera tricks, puppetry, prosthetics, and good old-fashioned goo. They might look a bit rough around the edges now, sure, but back then? Watching on VHS, these effects felt visceral, imaginative, and genuinely startling. There was a weight, a presence, to the scares that modern digital effects often struggle to replicate. Wasn't the raw, tactile feel of those effects part of the charm?
### Ironside Anchors the Chaos
Holding the escalating madness together is the ever-reliable Michael Ironside as Principal Billy Nordham. Fresh off genre staples like Scanners (1981) and Visiting Hours (1982), Ironside brings his signature intensity to a role that could easily have been pure caricature. He plays Billy’s mounting dread and guilt with surprising conviction, even when confronted with possessed lockers and levitating prom dresses. He’s the weary anchor in a sea of supernatural insanity.
Wendy Lyon also deserves major credit, pulling double duty as the innocent Vicki and the seductive, murderous Mary Lou. She navigates the transformation effectively, capturing both Vicki's terror and Mary Lou's malicious glee. And let's not forget a young Louis Ferreira (credited then as Justin Louis), playing Vicki's concerned boyfriend Craig, doing his best to make sense of his girlfriend's demonic mood swings.
### A Cult Following Forged in Magnetic Tape
Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II wasn't exactly a critical darling upon release, and its forced connection to the original likely confused some audiences. But oh, how it found its people on home video! This was prime weekend rental fodder, passed around among friends, its weird charms discovered late at night. It’s the kind of film that thrives on that shared discovery – the "Wait, this isn't Prom Night... but whoa, check this out!" moment. It developed a dedicated cult following precisely because it dared to be different, embracing its bizarre blend of high school horror, demonic possession, and campy 80s excess. It even spawned its own sequel, Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (1990), which leaned even harder into the dark comedy.
The film perfectly captures that specific flavour of mid-80s horror – a little bit punk rock, a little bit new wave, stuffed with high school anxieties amplified to supernatural proportions. The fashion, the music, the sheer audacity of its plot – it’s a time capsule wrapped in a revenge flick.
VHS Heaven Rating: 7/10
Justification: While the plot is chaotic and the logic occasionally takes a backseat to spectral spectacle, Hello Mary Lou delivers heaps of entertainment. Its practical effects are imaginative (if sometimes cheesy), Michael Ironside is fantastic, and its sheer unpredictable energy makes it stand out. It loses points for the slightly nonsensical plot mechanics and the forced sequel connection, but gains them back for pure, unadulterated 80s horror fun and undeniable cult appeal.
Final Thought: Forget the title – Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II is its own beautiful, bizarre beast; a perfect example of how the VHS era could turn a studio's marketing ploy into a weirdly wonderful cult treasure that still slays today.