There’s a special kind of cinematic masochism that comes with watching a horror franchise limp into its fourth entry. By the time you reach Prom Night IV: Deliver Us from Evil, the series has fully embraced the “direct-to-video energy” of a mall kiosk bootleg, where the horror isn’t so much on screen as it is in the fact that you paid to see it. What began in 1980 as Jamie Lee Curtis disco-dancing her way through a slasher has, by 1991, devolved into a Canadian morality play about a priest with a murder-crucifix and a script clearly written by someone who had beef with the Catholic Church andteenagers simultaneously.
Yes, this is the movie where the killer is not some masked maniac or supernatural bogeyman but a rogue Catholic priest named Father Jonas who stalks horny teens on prom night. He’s like Jason Voorhees, if Jason had been ordained and given access to a wine cellar.
The Setup: Sex, Sin, and Stigmata
We open in 1957 at Hamilton High’s prom. Two kids, Lisa and Brad, sneak off to the car for a little pre-marital fun. Instead of making out, however, they’re greeted by Father Jonas, a deranged priest with a metal crucifix that doubles as a murder weapon. Nothing says “mood killer” like a sweaty clergyman yelling about sin while stabbing you with the Son of God’s DIY power tool.
Jonas kills them both and sets their car on fire, because apparently his idea of spreading the Gospel is arson. We then learn Jonas is a product of sexual abuse from other priests, a tragic backstory the movie treats with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the forehead. He’s locked in a church basement for thirty-three years, drugged up like the Vatican’s least-favorite houseplant, until—surprise!—he escapes.
Already, the movie feels less like a slasher and more like a rejected pitch for a Christian youth group scare film titled Abstinence or Death.
Fast-Forward to 1991: Same Church, Worse Movie
Cut to 1991, when Father Colin, the world’s dumbest young priest, decides maybe Jonas doesn’t need his daily sedatives. Cue Jonas waking up crankier than a toddler denied a juice box, murdering Colin, and heading off to find fresh meat. The church, in classic institutional fashion, decides to cover it up—because nothing says “Christ-like” like staging a suicide and letting a killer priest wander free.
Enter our teens: Mark, his girlfriend Meagan, their friends Laura and Jeff, and Mark’s little brother Jonathan, who’s basically the doomed tag-along kid horror movies love to sacrifice before the real plot gets going. They decide prom is lame, so they drive off to an abandoned seminary to drink, fool around, and die in creative ways. Canadian youth: always practical.
Father Jonas: Killer with a Crucifix
Our villain returns to his old lair and reclaims his trusty weapon: a massive metal crucifix sharp enough to slice jugulars. Think of it as WWJD: Weaponized Edition. This is the kind of movie where the crucifix is less a symbol of salvation and more of an all-purpose can opener for horny teenagers.
Jonas isn’t just stabby, though—he’s also into props. He calls people on the phone like a budget Ghostface, dresses up in his victims’ scalps, and, at one point, uses an aspergillum (the holy water sprinkler) to spray fire. Forget sacramentals—this guy basically turned a mass into Mad Max.
The Teens: A Four-Pack of Cannon Fodder
Horror movies live or die by their teens, and here they die—spectacularly.
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Mark (J.H. Wyman): The generic Final Boy stand-in, with the charisma of an abandoned flip phone.
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Meagan (Nicole de Boer): Our Final Girl, who does her best, but even Scully-lite levels of competence can’t save this script.
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Laura (Joy Tanner): She’s the designated loud one who dies so early you forget she was even in the movie.
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Jeff (Alle Ghadban): Comic relief who ends up crushed like a rotten pumpkin.
They’re all as underwritten as the sticky notes holding this plot together. By the time Jonas starts crucifying them like kebabs, you’ll be rooting for him just to speed things along.
The Kills: Crucifixion for Dummies
The kills are where a slasher usually redeems itself. Not here. This film thinks style means stabbing people with the same crucifix over and over like an overworked stage prop. The one standout? Jonas scalping Laura and wearing her hair like a church drag act. Otherwise, it’s endless stabbings, stranglings, and Christian pyrotechnics that look like they were borrowed from a Pentecostal summer camp skit.
By the climax, Jonas has crucified Laura and Jeff’s bodies together and set them ablaze—sort of like a performance art piece titled Religious Trauma but Make It Prom. It’s disturbing, sure, but also so over-the-top you can’t help but laugh.
The Climax: Bug Spray vs. Holy Fire
Meagan, our weary Final Girl, finally faces Jonas. Her weapons? Bug spray, a shovel, and eventually a gun. She manages to beat him, lock him in a shed, and blow him up like a walking PSA for “don’t store gasoline next to kindling.”
But of course, because this is the early ’90s and sequels were inevitable, Jonas opens his eyes in the ambulance at the end. Because nothing says “Deliver Us from Evil” like teasing Prom Night V: Jonas Goes to College, which, mercifully, never happened.
The Catholic Horror Problem
Now, horror and Catholicism have always gone hand-in-hand—possession, exorcisms, creepy nuns, guilt. But Prom Night IV manages to make a killer priest both boring and offensive, like a Sunday homily that won’t end. The church conspiracy subplot is laughably on the nose, and Father Jonas is less “fallen priest consumed by evil” and more “youth pastor who took Halloween too seriously.”
The film even tries to add gravitas with stigmata imagery, but when your villain is spraying flames with a holy water sprinkler, subtlety left the building long ago.
The Real Horror: How Boring It Is
The biggest sin here isn’t blasphemy. It’s boredom. This is a movie where nothing happens for long stretches, then something dumb happens, and then you wait another fifteen minutes for more dumbness. The pacing is slower than Sunday mass, and twice as painful.
Even the sex-and-death formula, usually a slasher’s bread and wine, is watered down here. Instead of titillation, you get clumsy make-out sessions cut short by crucifix stabbings. If that’s your kink, congratulations—you’ve found your Citizen Kane.
Final Judgment
Prom Night IV: Deliver Us from Evil is less a horror film and more a two-hour reminder that not every franchise deserves a fourth entry. It’s preachy without conviction, violent without imagination, and scary only in the sense that you realize you still have 45 minutes left.
Clay Borris directs with all the energy of a substitute teacher showing a VHS tape. The kills are repetitive, the characters are disposable, and the “killer priest” angle feels like a Mad Lib gone too far.
In short: This movie doesn’t deliver us from evil. It delivers us from caring.
