"I Probably Have The Flu", or Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 (1987)

I'm kicking off this blog with a recap of one of the cheesiest horror sequels of all time, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2. We'll start by asking the question that has plagued mankind for 21 years, which is "Why in the hell is this called Prom Night 2?" Seriously, folks. In order for any film to rightfully be called a sequel, at the very least it should contain a passing mention of events and/or characters from the previous film. The closest this movie comes is repeating exactly ONE line from the original, verbatim. Otherwise it's just another horror movie that happens to feature a prom, and they may as well have called it Hello Mary Lou and forgot about the damn "2". I could rant about that all night. But I won't, because we have a lot of ground to cover. Cheesy, cheesy, ground. Let's begin by talking about the poster for a second.

Believe me when I say that this poster is creepier than anything in the movie itself. I have to say, I love Mary Lou's bitch face here. It's as though she knows it says "Prom Night 2" across her calves and she vehemently disagrees. I'm with you on that one, Mary Lou.

The movie opens with nighttime shots of a high school's exterior taken from various angles and set to freaky deaky techno music. You know, just in case this movie's original target audience had forgotten it was 1987. Tiring of exterior shots, the director gets a little wild and crazy and even shows us OMNINOUS shots of the school hallway and a stairwell! Omg it's all empty and stuff! How scary! Hold me. But the big money shot is the school's basement, which is shown to house a big-ass black trunk. Could this trunk be somehow important to the plot? Maaaaaaaaaybe. This is when the movie's title flashes across the screen, and I sigh a little and say "You are NOT Prom Night 2, dammit!"

We are now transported back to 1957 and introduced to the titular Mary Lou, who is on her way to confession. The priest sits astonished as Mary Lou confesses to being a slut and LOVING IT, dammit! Then she writes, I shit you not, "For a good time, call Mary Lou" on the confessional wall in lipstick. ML is hardcore, yo.

Cut to...Prom night! Mary Lou half-heartedly thanks her date Billy for letting her wear his ring before sending him off to fetch her a glass of punch. I should take this moment to add that Billy is the oldest looking teenager in the entire history of movies. Apparently, everyone under the age of 47 was unavailable for the role. Anyway, ML shoos him away to get her some punch, and when he gets back he is unable to locate her due to the fact that she's a little busy slutting it up under the stage with another guy. This doesn't sit so well with Billy. No, sir. It doesn't sit well with Billy AT ALL. Mary Lou doesn't care though, and is all "It's not who you come with. It's who takes you home." Word, ML. By the way, that line is the closest this movie comes to being a sequel, those exact words having been uttered by the token slut character in Prom Night The First.

So, Billy's been dumped for a guy who isn't balding. Poor, poor Billy. He'll show that two timing Jezebel what's what. His big revenge plan involves climbing into the rafters, waiting until Mary Lou is crowned queen of the prom and throwing a stink bomb at her that he found in the boy's bathroom. Great plan, Billy. Wonderful. Unfortunately, this doesn't exactly go according to plan. Cuz instead of just drowning Mary Lou in the sweet, sweet stinkiness of revenge, it ignites her dress and sets her ablaze. Everyone just watches in shock as Mary Lou dances in burning agony across the stage. Nobody even tries to put her out with punch or anything. Billy actually yells from his perch in the ceiling rafters for somebody else to help her out. Nice. Before she dies, Mary Lou gives Billy the stink eye, and I have a feeling that in present day 1987, things are going to go very badly indeed for him. And then there's another shot of that trunk from the opening. This trunk is IMPORTANT, yall.

And now it's 1987. Sweet. We are introduced to our new teenage heroine, Vicky, and I realize I was wrong about Billy being the oldest looking teenager, because Vicky is at least 38 years old. We are also introduced to Vicky's parents. Dad is ok, but Mom is kind of a heinous bitch, who, without much provocation, makes it clear that Vicky is NOT going to get a dress for the prom, and that she doesn't much approve of Vicky's motorcycle riding boyfriend Craig. Damn, who pissed in your oatmeal this morning, Mom?

By the way, I am keeping a running tally of Vicky's Horrible Outfits, because she has a lot of them in this movie. For instance, this morning while she's admonishing Craig for putting so much damn sugar in his coffee (she says sugar will kill you, and...really? Sugar? It's not like he's putting aresenic in it, Vicky. Chillax), she is wearing a button up floral shirt tucked into Mom Khakis.
How very...fug. Even by 1987 standards. So anyway, Craig gives her a gold cross necklace and Vicky gives the waitor Bitch Face when he comes around to ask if they need more coffee. Vicky, you already irritate me.

After a boring scene in which Vicky attends science class and doesn't pay attention, Craig goes to visit his dad, the principal. Who just so happens to be Billy. Sweeeet. Although...wtf? If you had accidentally killed the prom queen 30 years ago, would you really want to hang around in the same school? Cuz I wouldn't. Just sayin'. Anyway, Billy is all pissed because Craig doesn't want to go to college right away and would like to take a year or two off to work first. Word, Craig. Billy's all "All of a sudden you think you're old enough to make decisions that will affect the rest of your life?" And I'm all "Um, yeah he IS. He's about to graduate, mm'kay?"

After a brief introduction to the school bitch (we know she's a bitch because she has the most styling product in her hair and is rambling on and on about her dress and how it's sooooo much better than yours, mm'kay), Vicky makes her way down to the basement Prop Room to find something she can wear to the prom. First of all, NO FAIR. Secondly, the basement is as dark as the set design of a Tim Burton film and looks like it hasn't been touched since 1924. Vicky is apparently unperturbed by the darkness, because she doesn't even bother to look for a light, even when searching the racks and racks of free clothes. Vicky, isn't it hard to SEE what the clothes look like without a light? She DOES find a light when she comes across....THE TRUNK OF DOOM. So of course, she opens the damn thing. She opens it, you knew she would, and you would totally open it too, and you KNOW IT. The minute she opens it, the frame of the '57 class picture in Billy's office cracks. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUN.

So, inside the trunk, Vicky finds Mary Lou's sash, crown, and cape from the night of the prom. And not one of these items are in the least bit charred. Not so much as a film of smoke. As she takes these items out of the trunk, the trunk closes by itself. Vicky, sweetheart, this MIGHT mean that you don't wanna be screwing around with Mary Lou's shit. Don't say I didn't warn you. So Vicky says I didn't warn her, takes all this shit upstairs, and makes plans to wear the cape to the prom, even after a girl in her art class points out that the last person to wear it died in a fiery blaze.

We now have an "emotional" scene in which Vicky goes to the girl's bathroom and sees her friend Jess HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THIS CHICK'S HAIR OMG OMG OMG!!!

Sorry...had to go collect myself. Anyway, Vicky sees her friend Jess Of The Enormous Hair crying in the corner because she's preggers yall, and the baby daddy isn't answering her phone calls. And I really couldn't care less. I assume the only reason this scene exists is to make sure we "care" about Enormous Hair before the next scene in which she pops one of the jewels out of Mary Lou's crown and meets Mary Lou's ghostly fury, becoming the 2nd tally mark in this movie's Body Count. She is hung from ML's cape and thrown out the window. It's pretty sweet. Also, ML doesn't forget to pop the jewel back into the crown when she's through.

We cut to inside the town church. Apparently, the boy with whom ML whored it up behind the stage on prom night has become a priest. Um...awesome? Anyway, he's staring mournfully at a picture of Mary Lou and remembering the night of horrors when the picture falls of its own accord. This means baaaad things to come, yall.


So, while wandering around the cemetary after Enormous Hair's funeral in the world's ugliest black dress (Horrible Outfit #2), Vicky comes across Mary Lou's headstone and hears crying in her head as the camera zooms in on her face to give us an awesome view of her gigantic pores. The next day she laments the fact that the school has the audacity to hold the prom despite the death of Enormous Hair. Before I forget, she's wearing Horrible Outfit #3...another floral shirt and PINK Mom Pants, with blue loafers that show off her glaringly white socks. Good GOD! The ugly! It burns! Anyway, the school bitch takes this opportunity to show up and make a bitchy comment about how all the prom queen nominees should make like Enormous Hair and die. This pisses Vicky off and she tells School Bitch to "Shut your fucking mouth, Bitch!" HAHA Go Vicky!


So, lunchtime. Vicky has some sort of trippy ass hallucination in which she imagines that cockroaches are crawling all over the cafeteria and they're serving snot soup with what I presume is Mary Lou's face in it, although it's so covered in slop that I can't really tell. Eh...except for the face, it doesn't look too different from some of the cafeterias I have seen in my lifetime. Then Vicky makes this face:


I'm frightened.

Vicky freaks out and runs into the school hallway, where she takes a drink from the water fountain. The director takes a leaf from The Big Book Of Horror Movie Cliches and the water turns into blood. And then they take a leaf from The Big Book Of Redoing Stuff Wes Craven Did First by copying the scary school hallway scene from A Nightmare On Elm Street. Except this time there's no hall-monitor-turned-Freddy. Instead there's some phantom dude who appears out of nowhere, calls Vicky Mary Lou, and starts pawing at her. Vicky runs away again and bursts through some doors to find School Bitch, who gives her a "Freaaaaaak" look.

At home that night, Vicky and her mother fight over whether Vicky is going to college in the fall. Vicky wants to copy Craig and take a year off, and Mom is like "Oh hell naw!" We then get a scene in which Vicky tarts herself up in harlot makeup and winks at herself in the mirror. Is Mary Lou starting to possess her? Maaaaaaaaybe (yes).

The next day, Vicky is in gym class when School Bitch (who is sporting what I'm sure is her loveliest Jane Fonda ensemble) hits her in the head with a volleyball and Vicky is knocked out cold. She has yet another freaky dream sequence in which a bunch of girls in retro gym outfits advance towards her repeating "Mary Lou....Mary Lou..." over and over and Vicky gets all caught up in the volleyball net which now resembles a big black spider web. Wonderful. Good ol' Billy overhears Vicky when she wakes up surrounded by her classmates insisting "I'm NOT Mary Lou!" and gives the camera a knowing look before heading down to the basement, discovering Mary Lou's shit gone from the trunk, and giving another knowing look.

Craig escorts Vicky home, where Mom asks her what the dealio is with her fainting in school that day. Vicky answers with my favorite line in this whole movie: "We were playing volleyball in gym class and I fainted. I probably have the flu or something." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You got hit in the head with a volleyball, Vicky. Did you forget about this, or is your mother going to stone you for getting knocked out by sports equpiment? Anyway, Mom is all "You're not sick you just need to spend some time with the Lord! Go to confession, you'll be all better!" Vicky goes to confession where she confesses to the priest (Mary Lou's former man whore, remember) that she's been having hallucinations involving Mary Lou. While this is going on, Billy is at home burning the class picture that cracked before.

So, Vicky is drawing a picture of herself that night and the picture suddenly turns into a picture of Mary Lou. Boring! I mean...scary! Then the rocking horse in her room is shown to have glowing red eyes. Fun! Then Vicky has a minute of weird spasms and THEN the rocking horse sticks its tongue out at her, which would be disturbing if it wasn't so comical. So later that night Vicky sneaks off to Mary Lou's grave and runs into Priest and spazzes on how Mary Lou won't leave her alone. Priest tries to help by holding an exorcism in the church. An exorcism on who or what, I have no idea, because Vicky isn't there. Maybe it might have helped to have her there as well, yes? Anyway, Priest unleashes his inner Father Merrin by waving holy water at the stained glass windows and chanting "The body of Christ compels you!" 26,000 times in a row. And I vow to make a drinking game based on every time this movie blatantly rips off another.

Priest makes a visit to Billy's house to tell him that Mary Lou is back and out for revenge. He's all "She wants to possess you and kill you, Billy!" And Billy is all "ZOMG no she isn't!" And I'm all "You idiot!" And scene!

The next morning, Craig picks up Vicky on his motorbike for their usual coffee date before school. He greets her by saying "Shit, you look awful." HEHE. As opposed to when, Craig? Have you seen her outfits throughout this movie, for God's sake? Speaking of Vicky's outfits, Horrible Outfit #4 is yet another button up shirt (long sleeves this time) and what appear to be the same pink Mom Pants she was wearing the previous day. Lovely, Vicky. She pours about a gallon of sugar in her coffee. OMG PLOT POINT. She must be possessed now, cuz she's consuming the dreaded Killer Sugar! She emos to Craig about how she feels she may hurt somebody because she's all possessed and stuff. Craig gives her a "What a crazy bitch" look.

Bet you're wondering what School Bitch is up to while all this is going on, aren't you? No? Too bad, you're gonna find out anyway. What she's doing is trying to bribe the school Computer Nerd into fixing the votes so that she wins Prom Queen. She offers him a whopping 100 bucks for this service. Sensing an opportunity here, Computer Nerd names his price by typing it on a computer screen. We don't see what he wrote, but we can assume it's a sexual favor. School Bitch gets all pissy and throws a dart at his Albert Einstein poster before storming off. That'll show him, SB.

But back to Vicky. Vicky is in detention because she imagined School Bitch had turned into Mary Lou and slugged her in the face. Go Vicky! While Vicky is serving her detention inside, Craig and a few kids are discussing her strange behavior outside. Computer Nerd from before suggests that maybe Vicky is possessed (why yes...yes she is) and serves up the second Exorcist reference in 7 minutes by following this statement with "Your mother sews socks in hell, Father Karras!" Hehe. Sews socks. Anyway, Vicky is all by herself in the detention room when the words "Help Me" appear on the chalk board. Vicky goes over to investigate of course, and gets sucked into the board when it turns into a giant swirling vortex of water. Sweet. She ends up naked in the school basement, giving an evil grin that says Officially Fully Possessed. Awesome..I hated her old personality.

The first thing Vicky (Mary Lou, whatever) opts to do after this is go back to confession and kill Priest. Bye bye, priest. While she's doing it she laments the fact that she didn't get any wings when she died. Mm-hmm. The next day, she shows up at school, accompanied musically by Ricky Nelson's "Hello, Mary Lou" (of course!) in the first outfit in this whole movie that isn't ugly as sin. She's dressed in a white sweater and a big poofy white skirt, with saddle shoes and everything. Thank you Mary Lou, for finally ridding us of Vicky's Horrible Outfits. Her friends are all "Omg your outfit is so fugly, where are your Mom Pants???" STFU, mm'kay? 50s style clothes are awesome.

So Vicky/ML goes around school all day being 50 times more cool than she's ever been. I totes love Mary Lou's personality so much better than Vicky's. Why can't she just stay possessed again? Anyway, we get more asinine comments from her friends like "She looks like she's in a fashion coma" and "She talks like we're in an Elvis Presley movie." Haha. These comments haven't aged well. The 50s are cool again. Computer Nerd gives us Exorcist reference #3 ("I'm telling you, she's possessed! Linda Blairsville!"), which makes a total of 3 references to the same film in 11 minutes. Maybe THAT should be the drinking game.

After telekinetically lighting the science teacher's crotch on fire for hitting on her, Vicky/ML chases one of her friends around the locker room naked, which is hilarious. Friend hides in a locker, and Vicky/ML telekinetically squishes the lockers on either side of it together, crushing Friend to a pulp. Bye bye, Friend. Also, the movie's Body Count is now up to 4.

Body Count goes up to 5 (or so we are led to assume) when Vicky/ML makes out with Craig and then chokes him up against the wall. But he aint dead, don't fret none. I can't believe I just used the phrase "fret none". Anyway, Vicky/ML then pays a little visit to Billy in his office. And she's wearing Billy's ring! Snap! She tells him she killed Craig and then leaves. And Billy is all "Noooo!" It's hilarious.

So, it's prom night. At last. I'm not sure how much more I can take. Vicky/ML is sitting on her rocking horse in a surprisingly not ugly dress. Seriously, for an 80's prom dress it's not half bad. We can assume she stole it, because Mom had already said she wasn't signing no check for a new dress. We then get the MOST UNCOMFORTABLE SCENE EVER when Dad comes in and Vicky/ML starts making out with him. Eew eeew EEEEEEEEEEW. Mom walks in of course, and is surprisingly calm as she calls Vicky a Jezebel and a harlot. Vicky/ML is unperturbed by this and calmly walks out of the house, throwing Mom through the glass door on the way out (That's 6 bodies!).

No, wait...5 bodies. Craig is alive! Billy knocks him back out to stop him from tracking down Vicky. Sweet. Meanwhile, the prom is in full swing. All the little teenagers are dancing their butts off in their 80s prom wear. Computer Nerd is in the computer room all depressed because his date stood him up. Aaaaaw, she didn't stand you up, CN. Vicky/ML squished her into jelly in the locker room earlier today. School Bitch enters, having decided she wants to win prom queen badly enough to perform the sexual favor that CN is charging for fixed votes. She even came prepared with breath spray! Lovely. The best part is afterwards when she comes slinking back to her date and he kisses her and goes "Your breath smells great!" LMAO! That will never not be funny. Never.

Oh, come on. You didn't think Vicky/ML was going to let them get away with that, did you? Nope. She knows instantly what's up thanks to her awesome ghostly telepathy and without even breaking a sweat, makes it so that the computer electrocutes CN to death. Whil she's at it she fixes it so that she's prom queen. Because dammit, she didn't go to all the trouble of possessing this horribly fashion retarded teenager just so some little ho can take away her second chance to be queen of the prom. No, sir.

So, Vicky is announced as Prom Queen. Surprise surprise. Craig apparently woke up because he's at the school looking for her. Billy is back up in the rafters just like 30 years ago, only this time he's got a gun instead of a stink bomb. He shoots Vicky/ML just as Craig bursts into the gym, and once again, nobody lifts a finger to help. I can't really blame them this time though, because the rotting corpse of Mary Lou starts to emerge from Vicky's body. It's totes like that scene in Alien. And it's awesome. Mary Lou is fucking pissed that her prom queen moment is being ruined by that Billy asshole for the 2nd time. So she loses her supernatural shit and starts killing everybody in the gym, Carrie-style. Except unlike when Carrie did it, this isn't in the least bit frightening. Maybe it's the lack of red lighting and split screen. Or maybe it's because Mary Lou's corpse looks like it just escaped from Universal Studios Orlando. But I digress. She starts chasing Craig around and of course they end up in the goddamn basement. Craig manages to lose her and then opens a door to find...Vicky! She's aliiiive! Haha, just kiddin'. It's just one of Mary Lou's cunning tricks. She starts to put Craig in the trunk , but...Billy shows up and puts her crown on her head and kisses her. And...she's all happy and in her imagination she's back at Prom Night '57, content as a baby lamb. WHAT THE EFF??? That's ALL that had to happen to make her stop? SERIOUSLY???? Come ON!! She did not kill all those people and go through all of that trouble just to be placated by her goddamn crown. She DID NOT. WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU JUST TAKE YOUR GODDAMN CROWN BACK WHEN ENORMOUS HAIR WAS

MESSING WITH IT EARLIER OMG OMG OMG.

But what of Vicky? Glad you asked. The real Vicky, it turns out, has been inside the trunk since she got sucked into the chalkboard. She's still in her Horrible Outfit, and she's all wet. So wait, was that really her body that went to prom? Or did Mary Lou shape shift? And if she shape shifted, whose body did her corpse climb out of? I am so confused! Anyway, Craig makes certain it's really Vicky by asking her if she takes sugar in her coffee. Vicky's all "That stuff will kill you!" Guess that settles that. By the way Vicky, you might be in for an awkward situation when you get home, seeing as how you killed tour mom and all.

So, Craig and Vicky are loaded into Billy's car and are safe and all is right with the world. But WAIT! The director isn't done with his notes from The Big Book Of Stuff Wes Craven Did First! (Remember that?) Billy is possessed by Mary Lou!!! And the car's license plate reads MaryLu2! And this was so much more entertaining when they did it in A Nightmare On Elm Street and the car contained Johnny Depp! And Billy/ML drives the kids off into the night, presumably to murder them. I can only hope.

And, that's the end! Thank God. And so ends my very first recap. Hopefully you liked it :-D

First Post!

So, I've been wanting to start my own recap blog for awhile now. Since I'm kind of a horror movie freak, I figured I may as well recap horror movies. But not just ANY horror movies. No, I am going to recap the horror movies that are so bad that they're good. You know the type. Most of them were made in the 80s and contain enough fake blood and bad hair to last anybody for a respectable lifetime. So, enough introduction (ever notice how these introduction posts are almost always boring as hell?) Let's get to it!