THEPERFORMANCE

If 22-year-old actress Brittany Snow had any regrets about missing her high school prom, she’s pretty much over them now. “I got to go to a prom for three months when I was shooting this film,” she says of the thriller “Prom Night,” which opens Friday. “Oh, my gosh -- that was a really long time to be in a prom dress.”

Snow plays Donna, a high school senior whose magical night turns gruesome when the obsessed stalker (Johnathon Schaech) who killed her entire family three years earlier escapes from a mental institution and decides to crash her big event -- and finally claim his true love.

The actress, who starred in last year’s “Hairspray” remake but is best known for playing girl-next-door Meg Pryor in the ‘60s-set TV series “American Dreams,” says she was initially hesitant about turning to the dark side. “I read the script and was like, ‘Ehh. I don’t know,’ ” she says. “I didn’t want to do the stereotypical cheesy horror flick.”

What changed her mind, she says, was the opportunity that director Nelson McCormick (“CSI,” “Prison Break,” “Nip/Tuck”) gave her to weigh in on the music, the wardrobe, the cast, even her character. “I liked the fact that my character got to be not just a regular girl who’s in high school but somebody who’s actually dealing with a real issue: post-traumatic stress disorder.”

With saucer-size blue eyes and cheerleader good looks, the Tampa, Fla., native certainly doesn’t bring to mind broody slasher queen Jamie Lee Curtis, who starred in the 1980 original. Snow points out that comparisons aren’t necessary. “It’s not a remake,” she says. “It actually just has the same title. But it’s a completely different story.”

This “Prom Night” sets its cat-and-mouse game in the context of today’s super-proms, with the action taking place in a swanky hotel (the Park Plaza Hotel stands in for the film’s fictional Pacific Grand Hotel), where couples walk the red carpet for adoring townsfolk and floor-to-ceiling flat screens capture the dance-floor drama.

The role was more than just a sartorial challenge for Snow. “It’s hard to make [the terror] real,” she says. “That you’re being chased by somebody when the person isn’t even there -- and there’s like 20 crew members staring back at you. There are no footsteps in the distance. And craft services is right around the corner.”

Snow’s upcoming roles will also stretch her acting muscles: She’ll play a prostitute in “Black Water Transit,” the Tony Kaye crime drama, and a drug addict in “Finding Amanda,” a black comedy costarring Matthew Broderick, which premieres this month at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Snow says she’s excited about getting grittier roles -- and playing characters closer to her age. “I still get that I look like I’m 14. Sometimes I cannot get a glass of wine because I look so young,” she says, laughing. “At the same time, high school’s really fun to play too -- a lot goes on during that time.”

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Where You’ve Seen Her

Snow played Meg Pryor, the innocent Philly teen coming of age during the turbulent ‘60s in the TV drama “American Dreams.” (She was shooting the show during her real-life school’s prom.) She also starred in “The Pacifier,” “John Tucker Must Die” and last year’s “Hairspray,” in which she played bratty teen Amber Von Tussle.