This Ends at Prom

"It takes more than a fire truck to stop Drop Dead Fred." Some of us aren't lucky enough to have an imaginary friend like DROP DEAD FRED, but plenty of people are fortunate enough not to need him. In honor of the film's 35th anniversary, we're dissecting a quarter-life crisis nervous breakdown movie about a young woman who finds the key to happiness is embracing the person society tried to keep tr...

Content Warning: LET THE RIGHT ONE IN features troubling topics that may be difficult for some listeners. Please do your due diligence and check for potential triggers. "I'm twelve. But I've been twelve for a long time." In 2008, one of the greatest vampire films in cinema history was released, and it doubled as one of the most beautiful examinations of the type of yearning for someone to understa...

"Do you know I'm anatomically correct?" While everyone is celebrating entering their "new year, new me" era, This Ends at Prom is kicking off 2026 with the long-awaited discussion of LIFE-SIZE. The movie that strut in plastic heels before Barbie could rollerblade down Venice Beach, The Wives Colangelo are talking about unapologetic feminine presentation, the power of dollhood, why Lindsay Lohan co...

“I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I'm so sick of it." The best way to spend the holidays is curled up next to a warm fire and waxing poetic about the March sisters and LITTLE WOMEN. This year, The Wives Colangelo are dissecting Greta Gerwig's adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel, and debating the parallel storytelling device. And not to pit strong LITTLE WO...

"That's what I like about you. I never know what you'll say next." Alex Thompson and Kelly O'Sullivan's SAINT FRANCES was one of the best films released during quarantine, and no one has been a bigger champion of it than writer, editor, critic, and host Amelia Emberwing. The Wives Colangelo are joined by Emberwing to dissect what a coming-of-age film looks like as life milestones become increasing...

"That's what I like about you. I never know what you'll say next." 40 years ago, Madonna transcended into pop star superstardom and helped turn a quarter-life crisis film into a coming-of-age classic that helped define teen fashion for a decade. Many women are shaped by the women who came before them and showed them what was possible, and that's precisely what Susan provided for a generation. Some...

"So today's lesson is, you kill each other off till there's only one left. Nothing's against the rules." 25 years ago, Kinji Fukasaku brought the infamous novel BATTLE ROYALE to life, and essentially invented a new subgenre of dystopian teen cinema. In honor of the film's anniversary, The Wives Colangelo are exploring the incredibly bleak messaging the film has about generational division, governm...

"I... have a girlfriend. She lives in Ohio." The first fall break after leaving your hometown and going off to college is one of the weirdest adjustment periods in a young person's life, and it's weird that SWEETHEARTS is one of the only movies to talk about it! This week The Wives Colangelo are heading back to the Midwest to discuss "Turkey Dumps," taking the jump without the safety net of famili...

"I am gonna do what I wanna do! And you know what? I don't need your permission to do it!" What if your grandparents magically turned back into teenagers, and they were so hot that it caused chaos in your high school? And what if you look exactly like your grandma did at your age, so this magical regression inspires some twin magic hijinks? This week, The Wives Colangelo are joined by Aaron Perine...

"So this is what it feels like to be Jamie Lynn Spears." There are two types of people in this world: People who love Lifetime Original Movies and people named Harmony Colangelo. This Ends at Prom is finally embarking on the wild world of LMN originals and starting with THE PREGNANCY PACT, a ripped-from-the-headlines drama with massive creative liberties taken. What actually happened to these girl...

"Put on your Sunday best, kids. We're going to Sears!" The Brady Bunch is one of those fascinating TV relics that helped shape American culture for decades, so in the 1990s, they lovingly spoofed it with THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE and gave us one of the great cult-hits of the decade. To sweeten the deal, the film is also centered on the middle teen girl of the group, the incomparable Jan Brady. Join Th...

"Don't dream it. Be it." 50 years ago, a midnight movie was unleashed on the American masses that changed the lives of outsider teenagers forever. The Wives Colangelo would not be the people we are today without THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, and neither would Chelsey Weber-Smith of the American Hysteria podcast. For the final episode of the Halloween season 2025, let's all do the time warp, give...

"That's the whole point. I'm going to marry the Prince." THE UGLY STEPSISTER is Emilie Blichfeldt's first feature, and it is unfathomable that a first-time feature filmmaker was given the space (and budget) to make such a biting, daring, and monstrous creative swing. The reason Cinderella is a fairy tale is that to be a woman so pure and beautiful that a rich prince takes you away from your terrib...

"The girls will wake up ... when they are hungry." Is Hausu secretly the most honest coming-of-age teen girl horror movie ever made? This week, The Wives Colangelo are diving into the wild, weird, and wonderful world of Nobuhiko Obayashi's 1977 masterpiece, HOUSE. Hell truly is a teenage girl, and this week the show is discussing seven young women who were eaten before adulthood had the chance to...

"We're made to be monsters, so let's be monsters. Let's be gods." BIT is the intersectional, trans-inclusive, vampire girl gang movie of your dreams, and The Wives Colangelo are here to talk about it for the most wonderful month of the year. How do you exist in a world that makes you out to be a monster just for existing, and what do you do when you're given the kind of power that cis straight whi...

"Please, Lord, make me the biggest star the world has ever known so that I may get far, far away from this place. Amen." The Wives Colangelo are kicking off the Halloween season by discussing a young woman who will not accept a life she does not deserve, the titular PEARL. Discussions include the liberating excitement of seeing an adult film for the first time, the weird ways repression can manife...

"Fate! There is such a thing as fate, but it only takes you so far. Then it's up to you to make it happen." Everyone loves that one last house party after high school before everything changes, especially when it has a banger soundtrack, introduces the next generation of Hollywood superstardom, and gives us all a reason to believe in fate. This week, the Wives Colangelo are finally tackling CAN'T...

"If it's a man's world, God wouldn't have made me." This week, The Wives Colangelo are championing the young women who were ever called a "bad influence" and celebrating the rural queer kids fighting for a chance to exist in a world that tries to literally straighten them out by talking about DIRTY GIRL. This criminally underrated and underseen road trip comedy is the exact kind of subversive come...

"Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you are born to stand out?" This week, The Wives Colangelo are hopping the pond and showing up to merry ol' England to find their long-lost rich dads and talk about the Amanda Bynes classic, WHAT A GIRL WANTS. Discussions include dissecting why so many movies post-9/11 were overseas adventures, the glory of Colin Firth in leather pants, and why the statem...

“That’s the funny thing about hope. Nobody else gets to decide if you feel it. That choice belongs to you.” We're goin' up, up, up! It's our moment! You know together we're glowin'! KPOP DEMON HUNTERS has quickly become a phenomenon, and we are loving every second of it. This week, The Wives Colangelo are doing a deep dive into the world of K-pop with film journalist, culture critic, host, and K-p...

"UGH. AS IF!" Back in 2020, the recently married Wives Colangelo sat down in their Cleveland apartment to kill some time during quarantine and talk about teen girl movies. Now, five years later, in a different apartment in Los Angeles, they're returning to the movie that started it all and celebrating how it has changed culture in the last 30 years -- CLUELESS. A film this monumental deserved revi...

"My face looks like a Birkin bag that's been left out in the sun to rot!" The long-awaited sequel to 2003's FREAKY FRIDAY is finally here, and The Wives Colangelo are thrilled to finally have a movie in theaters that they can cover on the show. Is FREAKIER FRIDAY a worthy follow-up to the absolute best film in the franchise, or was it another cheap bid for nostalgia that no one needed? Is a four-w...

"As we grow older, it becomes difficult to just believe." In honor of the film's 30th anniversary, The Wives Colangelo are stuffing their bras with pudding, trying to find the truth about a tombstone, having an existential crisis about coming back to their hometowns, and falling in love all over again with the movie NOW AND THEN. Let's talk about the sapphic energy of Sam and Roberta, the chokehol...

"I've been kicked off the track team, and without track, my grades will be based on ...my grades." The world lost a wonderful woman this month with the passing of Margo Donohue. In honor of her life and legacy, we're re-releasing our episode with her on HEAVEN HELP US, the 1985 Catholic school boys film filmed in Brooklyn. At the time of the episode, Margo had just released the book FILMED IN BROO...

"Music is all that matters. One hour on stage makes up for the other 23." The Wives Colangelo are heading back to the Midwest for a trip, so it's only fitting that they'd cover an underrated shot-in-Cleveland story starring Joan Jett and Michael J. Fox about a pair of musical siblings trying to find their places in the world. Directed by Paul Schrader and featuring music by Bruce Springsteen, LIGH...