Hello Again, Mary Lou: A Conversation with Ron Oliver

Anyone who has watched film and television over the last 25 years will be familiar with Ron Oliver's work in one way or another.  His impressive credits include Are You Afraid of the Dark, Goosebumps, Animorphs (all three of which he was involved with both as writer and director), The Secret World of Alex Mack, the Donald Strachey films starring Chad Allen for Here!, plus many other films and TV shows.  Most recently he directed Annie Potts in The Music Teacher for The Hallmark Channel, which premieres this Saturday, August 11th. 

Still as busy and hardworking as ever, Mr. Oliver kindly took some time to reminisce about his first two professional film projects: Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II and Prom Night III: The Last Kiss, for which he wrote both screenplays and received a co-directorial credit for III.

The four original Prom Night films, all of which have garnered cult audiences, spanned 1980-1992, although only II & III share any real connection with each other: the delightfully evil character of bad girl would-be prom queen Mary Lou Maloney (Lisa Schrage).  The story starts in 1957, where Mary Lou's jilted prom date decides to get revenge by lobbing a stink bomb onstage when she's selected prom queen.  Unfortunately, the flaming bomb ignites her dress and she burns to death in front of her horrified classmates.  30 years later, her accidental killer Bill Nordham (Michael Ironside) is now principal of Hamilton High, still haunted all these years by the memory of his crime.  Things get even more tense when his son's girlfriend, Vicki Carpenter (Wendy Lyon), begins to act...differently; dressing in 50's clothes, becoming increasingly mean tempered, and confronting Bill with things only Mary Lou would know.  Mary Lou is back, within Vicki, and is determined to get her crown at long last.

Hello Mary Lou, a sequel in-name only to the Jamie Lee Curtis original, wasn't conceived as such by Oliver: "I wrote the script as a spec called The Haunting of Hamilton High and they made it, but they owned the Prom Night title, so they called it that for commercial value."

The film was directed by Bruce Pittman.  "I remember liking Bruce a great deal, but his original cut of the movie was not terribly scary," Ron recalls. "We reshot about 1/3 of it for scary improvement and I directed that material, with input from the editor and our producer Peter, both of whom sadly are dead now." (producer Peter Simpson passed away in 2007, while editor Nick Rotundo died last August in Toronto).

Shot primarily in Edmonton, Alberta and released theatrically in 1987, the movie garnered its biggest audience on home video.  In 1989, Mary Lou came back from the dead for another round of murder and mayhem in the third installment, The Last Kiss, this time shot in Toronto and released direct-to-video.  The new plot involved Mary Lou once again returning to Hamilton High, after ingenously escaping from a macabre chained chorus line down in Hell with a nail file...and yes, you read that correctly.  Mary Lou becomes infatuated with perennial average student Alex Grey (Tim Conlon) and is determined to help him succeed in any way possible, even if it means killing off the whole school to do it.

"The PN3 script I wrote at the same time [as II] and tucked it away in my desk in case of a sequel, and then a couple years later we did it. Directing with Peter consisted of me doing all the prep work and then him being on set during the shoot more like a supervising producer, but the finance guys weren't going to give me - a first timer - a shot at directing unless Peter was there, so I am forever in his debt." 

Despite Mary Lou appearing in both entries (with actress Courtney Taylor replacing Lisa Schrage for III), the tones of the two films couldn't be more different.  Whereas II was darker and more of a direct homage to past horror films, III was an all out tongue-in-cheek black comedy.

"Tonally, horror was out in 1989, so PN3 made sense to them.  I had written it very tongue in cheek, and we followed through on it. Lots of things I like about the movie but lots that I hate."

As for the two Mary Lous: "I don't have a favorite. Both ladies did lovely jobs with what little character I gave them. If I had it to do over again, with 25 years of experience, I would love to revisit the mythology and make it a full on nasty ghost story."

Today, he views the film with a combination of sentimentality and 20/20 hindsight: "I love the stylized stuff when we get to the alternate Prom world; love the look and colors of it all. I love many of the murder scenes and the garish comic book feel of it. I HATE that as a first timer I spent a great deal of time struggling with simple cinematic things, like eye lines and axis crosses, which ultimately don't make a bit of difference artistically.  I was working with a very experienced but not-terribly-risk-taking crew and I listened to their counsel a great deal more than I should have; should have probably just gone with my instinct and the film would have been much crazier, much more to my tastes. And while I love Tim [Conlon] and David [Stratton] and Courtney [Taylor] and all of them, and think they did very well given what I saddled them with, I think I made a huge mistake in not casting 18 year olds versus almost-30-year-olds. It just feels off. But live and learn."

"I think what I'm trying to say is, the things about PN3 that I hate are all of my own creation; first time at bat, as it were. But it must be said that my DP on the picture, the very gifted Rhett Morita, and I were on a steep learning curve. We were doing absurd 20 hour days on that movie, and shooting in Toronto in the middle of freaking winter trying to do exteriors when the cameras would jam from the cold....but we were trying to make it look like anytown USA in the early autumn."

Even nastier than filming conditions was the financing of the film. "There's a marvelous and tragic story to be told about how PN3 was financed....suffice to say it involved the infamous Menendez family and a late dinner at Trader Vic's, and a deal was made to make the movie. A week later, we had to delay production because Jose Menendez and his wife, our dinner hosts, had been murdered. Ultimately it was revealed their killers were of course their sons....our OTHER dinner companions that night."

Simpson would produce one last entry for the series in 1992, Prom Night IV: Deliver Us from Evil.  Yet despite the continued use of Hamilton High as the setting (plus some recycled shots from the opening prom scene of II) there was no Mary Lou, or Ron Oliver, in sight. "By the time they made 4, I was long gone from Toronto; had moved to LA and was trying to find my next gig. I don't think they ever considered bringing the character back again."

Oliver has long since graduated to much more contemporary and serious fare in entertainment, but everybody has to start somewhere, and there are still plenty out there who appreciate and remember the golden days of 80's horror. 

"Making that movie was a thrill because it was my favorite kind of script....my own! Seriously though, the black comedy elements were lost on a lot of people at the time, but it seems to have taken on a life of its own over the years."

Mary Lou may have peaked in high school yet never obtained her crown, but with an Emmy nomination and two DGA nominations under his belt, Oliver still has a long and successful climb ahead of him.

Thanks for your time, Ron.