BEFORE: I think this is the end of the back-to-school films, there might be ONE more this week, but no more than that. I've really got to hustle if I'm going to start the October horror chain on time. Silly me, I programmed three "skip days" into September, but then I just HAD to add "Transporter" and "Transporter 2" and that cut me down to ONE skip-day, and then I added two more but only took away one, and that was because it has the wrong Steve Coulter in it. Suddenly there are NO skip days in September and I'll probably end up with 31 movies watched in a 30-day month. Well, it's OK because now I know I can get by in November and December with just 14 slots, and we'll still make it to Christmas. OK, I promise, no more talk about Christmas movies until the trick-or-treating is over.
THE PLOT: Three parents try to stop their daughters from losing their virginity on prom night.
AFTER: Really, this is another film that I was in no hurry to get to - it came out in 2018, so that's SIX years ago, and I guess I was avoiding it, because it just didn't look that funny when it was released, or maybe I was just ignoring it because so many other movies exist and seemed more important. I only put it on my list a few months ago, it might have been on premium cable before, but I recorded it from the USA channel, so it's kind of had its day and it's not really on anyone's rader any more, at this point you've either watched the film or you haven't, I'd wager that nobody's paying to rent it if it's airing on the non-premium channels that are desperate to fill up air time.
And yeah, I know it's about prom night, and proms happen in May or June, not in September, but work with me here, it's a wonder that it landed here as part of a school-based chain. I won't tell the story again about how my boss mixed up the timeline in a high-school based animated feature because he was convinced that proms take place in the fall, not the spring. I tried to tell him he was confusing "homecoming" with prom, but he just wouldn't believe me. No, I've told that story too many times, I won't tell it again. But here I am, making essentially the same mistake, watching a prom movie in September - but I KNOW that it's a mistake and a side-effect of the chain-linking system, I'm not ignorant.
Look, I'm 55 and child-free, so it's unlikely that I'll ever have the experience of having a kid in high-school or going to prom or being on the debate team or whatever. That window has closed, unless my life takes some weird turn. This whole film is based on that experience being a double-edged sword for a parent, because it means their son or daughter is close to graduation and college and (maybe) adulthood, but it also means they might be planning to have sex on Prom Night, especially if they've never had it before. So it's a time to celebrate that they're getting older, but also to dread that they're getting more mature, if that makes sense.
And just as there are all kinds of students (as seen in "Leo") there are also many kinds of parents, who would deal with this situation differently. Sure, there are parents who are willing to celebrate their child's sexual awakening and not consider it a "loss" of something, but a gaining of experience. Then there are those parents who prefer denial, they just don't want to know what their kids do on Prom Night, just go to bed early and pull the covers over their heads and try to not think about it. But those kinds of parents aren't very fun or cinematic, are they? Nah, let's make a movie about the parents who panic and lose their minds and set out to disrupt their children's plans, both AT the main prom and also at the hotel after-party, where, come on, it's a hotel, kids are totally doing it.
Sure, we've come a long way, sex education is a lot better than it used to be (at least in some states) and teens are allowed to have attractions to both genders (again, in some states) and they give out condoms at school events and teens are taught to not be ashamed of their bodies or their feelings and they feel free to experiment or have sex, or to NOT have sex if they choose. Yeah, right, it's probably more complicated and awkward than it ever was before, thanks to P.C. rules. It's probably a miracle if anyone gets laid in high-school now because everyone's so hyper-sensitive and gender-non-conforming and also they're all riddled with anxiety or ADHD or their peanut and gluten allergies, all that probably gets in the way.
Anyway, let's assume that somewhere there are teenage girls who pick Prom Night for their first sexual experiences, and their parents are pretty much NOT OK with it, because it's funnier if they're the type that fly off the handle, speed around on Prom Night trying to find their kids' rented limo, and get so inside their own heads and fall back on outdated attitudes that they feel they must stop their daughters' first times at any cost. Again, because it will probably be funnier that way. Parents speaking to their kids in an open and honest dialogue about the risks and rewards of sex is just plain boring.
You just KNOW somebody really wanted to title this film "Cock Blockers", because there's a prominent silhouette of a rooster in the title on the poster. But the studio probably couldn't market a film with that word in the title, so they took it out. But we all know it's there, now the question is, is it unofficially part of the title? I'm reminded of the film "The Report" which looked like it had NO title at all, because they redacted (blanked out) the title on the poster and in all marketing materials. It's a too-cute joke, because how do you get people talking about going to see your film if nobody even knows what the title is? Everybody can't just keep saying "That movie, you know, the one with no title". Or can they?
The three close teen friends have something of a sex pact, they all agree to have sex on Prom Night, Julie with her long-time boyfriend Austin, Kayla with her science lab partner, Connor (they're not serious, but she just wants to get the first time out of the way) and Sam with the goofy but nice guy Chad, even though she's a closeted lesbian who would rather date her female classmate, Angelica.
The parents of the three girls learn about the pact because one leaves her laptop open and awake and her text chains also pop up there, and the parents can therefore spy on her texts, and there sure are a lot of eggplant emojis in them... Jeez, and their parents thought their daughters were so sweet and innocent - but over the course of the night, all the secrets come out, like how Julie's planning to go to college across the country in L.A. but she hasn't told her mother yet, and how Julie has sexual feelings that she can't talk to her father about, and yeah, how Sam is a lesbian, which at that point really wasn't much of a secret at all.
Pro tip for the teens out there - before having sex with your casual non-girlfriend, maybe check to make sure her father isn't built like a pro wrestler who can pick yu up and throw you across the room. Just a thought.
NITPICK POINT: Who drives from Chicago to L.A. just to drop somebody off? That's over 2,000 miles and about 29 hours of drive-time, would probably take three or four days, even with multiple drivers. Well, any teenagers who are considering themselves in a couple at the start of that trip might be headed for a break-up after spending so much time together in the car.
NITPICK POINT 2: Can we all agree that butt-chugging beer just isn't really a thing? As seen here, the teen doing it is only pretending, forcing the adult to be the only one. But come on, what a stupid stupid thing for anyone to do, how does that even work? It's just a beer enema, right? I mean, if you're doing that to get drunk then you're doing it wrong. Does the beer at the party really taste that bad? Usually people just drink a few glasses of it and then they can't taste it any more anyway. Sure i get it's supposed to be a funny bit but it's just going to give teens bad ideas that they may copy.
Also starring Leslie Mann (last seen in "The Bubble"), John Cena (last seen in "Barbie"), Ike Barinholtz (last seen in "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent"), Kathryn Newton (last seen in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania"), Geraldine Viswanathan (last seen in "Drive-Away Dolls"), Gideon Adlon, Ramona Young (last heard in "Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken"), Graham Phillips (last seen in "Evan Almighty"), Miles Robbins (last seen in "My Friend Dahmer"), Jimmy Bellinger, Colton Dunn (last seen in "Killing Hasselhoff"), Sarayu Blue (last seen in "Lions for Lambs"), Gina Gershon (last seen in "LOL"), June Diane Raphael (last seen in "Unfinished Business"), Hannibal Buress (last seen in "Slice"), Anniston Almond, Noor Anna Maher, Hannah Goergen, Chad Sanborn, Aubree McGuire, Milana Alrayes, Rylee Whiteman, Audrey Casson, Madeline Paris Erwin, Aubrey Michele Katz, Andrew Lopez, Jake Picking (last seen in "Top Gun: Maverick"), T.C. Carter (last seen in "Assassination Nation"), Jill Jane Clements (last seen in "The Best of Enemies"), Rhoda Griffis (last seen in "Jerry and Marge Go Large").
RATING: 5 out of 10 rose petals on the bed (awww...)
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