The North American poster for the 1980 high school horror flick Prom Night is pretty straightforward—as you see below, it's a masked head and a knife, and was used in Canada, where the film was made, and in the U.S. The Japanese promo, on the other hand, has a beautiful image of Anne-Marie Martin rendered by airbrush artist Harumi Yamaguchi. It's almost like the Japanese distributors took this movie seriously.

Have you ever seen it? It's cheesy as hell and slow to develop, with a cop voiceover, wooden acting from performers who in real life were all in their mid-twenties, and a final unmasking of the killer that's an anti-climax. It's also a sad reminder that high-waisted pants, despite the fact that many women are wearing them again these last few years thanks to the fashion industry championing them, are really fuckin' ugly.

But for all those flaws, the movie is better than it has a right to be. Plus it has Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen, and they make up for a multitude of sins. Prom Night premiered as プロムナイト in Japan today in 1981. That translates directly, but we don't think Japanese schools have proms. Somehow the American concept is known, though, which makes us wonder if they learned it from the movie. If so, proms will not be getting popular in Japan anytime soon.

Every once in a while we come across a pleasant surprise of a film and Road Games is an example of that perfect nexus where no expectations meet good filmmaking to greatly improve our day. Starring Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis, Road Games is about an American hitchhiker making her way across the Australian outback the same time a depraved serial killer is loose on the road. She's picked up by truck driver Keach and the two of them come to believe they're following the same route across the country as the murderer. Keach and Curtis are great in this. Even though Curtis's attraction to a porno mustached forty-something can only be explained as a case of outback fever, the May/December storyline is deftly handled and reasonably believable, and the entire movie is given extra dimensionality by vast Australian vistas and witty dialogue. We highly recommend this one. It seems to have been mismarketed as a horror movie back in its day, but really it's just a thriller. Straightforward, well made, and starring two appealing performers, Road Games premiered in Australia today in 1981. You see the Aussie poster above, while the U.S. promo, along with some production photos, is below.