The film's plot follows a group of high school seniors who are targeted at their prom by a masked killer, seeking vengeance for the accidental death of a young girl six years earlier.

The film features supporting performances from Casey Stevens, Eddie Benton, Mary Beth Rubens and Michael Tough.

At the time, the film was AVCO Embassy's most financially successful release, breaking weekend records in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New England.

Prom Night received some critical accolades, garnering Genie Award nominations for editing and also for the leading performance of Jamie Lee Curtis.

Six years later in present day, Robin's elder sister, Kim, and fraternal twin brother, Alex, are preparing for the school prom.

Meanwhile, Kim and Alex's father, the school principal, learns that the sex offender blamed for Robin's death has escaped from a psychiatric facility.

It is revealed to be Alex, who explains to Kim that he witnessed their sister's death and Jude, Kelly, Wendy and Nick were responsible.

[11] Writer Robert Guza Jr., a University of Southern California film student of whom Lynch was an acquaintance, had written a story about a group of teenagers whose involvement in a tragic event as children came back to haunt them.

[13] While attending a Telefilm Canada event in Los Angeles,[14] Lynch met producer Peter Simpson, to whom he pitched the idea.

[18] According to the producer of Prom Night, Eve Plumb (from television's The Brady Bunch) originally auditioned for the role of Kim Hammond,[19] but was passed over after Jamie Lee Curtis' manager contacted Paul Lynch about her starring in the film.

"[23] Opposite Nielsen, portraying his character's wife, is Antoinette Bower, whom Lynch had seen on numerous Canadian television programs.

[24] The majority of the film's supporting actors and actresses were stage performers and recent theater graduates from the University of Toronto.

[25] Michael Tough, a 17-year-old actor who was cast as Kim's younger brother, Alex, recalled that he and Curtis spent an afternoon together shopping to become familiar with each other and establish a sibling-like dynamic.

[26] Mary Beth Rubens, who appears as Kim's ill-fated friend, Kelly Lynch, had recently graduated from the Montreal Theatre School when she was cast in the role.

Prom Night was filmed over twenty-four days in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with principal photography beginning August 13, 1979,[1] and completing September 13.

[31] Don Mills Collegiate Institute served as the main school location, while the Langstaff Jail Farm in Richmond Hill was used for the abandoned building featured prominently in the beginning of the film.

[32] Art director Reuben Freed had wanted to take advantage of Toronto's Victorian architecture, and felt that the Langstaff building had an appropriate Gothic appearance.

[39] The Prom Night score and soundtrack was composed by Paul Zaza and Carl Zittrer, with additional writing by Bill Crutchfield and James Powell.

[1] Its theatrical run expanded on August 15, 1980, to New York City and Los Angeles, and included select midnight screenings.

[49] By the end of its theatrical run, Prom Night grossed a total of $14.8 million at the U.S. box office with approximately 5,500,460 admissions.

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune referred to the film as a "watered-down cross between Carrie and Halloween", though he noted it was "not as violent as one might expect, based on those frightening ads of a masked man holding a phallic knife... You would think that Prom Night was another one of those hideous attacks-on-promiscuous-women pictures.

"[57] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times deemed the film "an efficient rather than stylish Canadian-made horror picture that mercifully lets you complete its grislier moments in your imagination.

"[60] The Montreal Gazette's Bruce Bailey praised Curtis's performance but criticized the film's lengthy exposition, noting that "it takes rather long to get down to the business of delivering a few shocks.

The consensus reads: "Horror aficionados might have a ball with Prom Night, but a lack of mystery and inability to capitalize on the dance hall setting makes for a generic night of mayhem.”[51] AllMovie's review of the film was generally negative, but wrote that it "utilizes a surprising amount of skill both behind and in front of the camera as it goes through its paces".

[62] In a review published by Time Out, the film was called "a sincere Halloween rip-off which takes time out to milk Carrie, Saturday Night Fever, and all those B-feature 'lust and rivalry' high school sagas", but praised Jamie Lee Curtis's performance, writing: "Curtis is superb as Miss Naturally Popular and Prom Queen-to-be, isolated in empty high school corridors.

"[63] TV Guide gave the film one out of four stars, writing: "Curtis disco-dancing and wonderful moments such as when the severed head of a victim rolls across the dance floor.

[1] In order to slightly lengthen the film after nudity was excised for television airings, an alternate cut of Prom Night was crafted by editor Michael MacLaverty.

[67] The television version of the film features some additional scenes that were excised from the original theatrical cut, as well as extended sequences that had been truncated.