The Initiation (1984)

The greatest movie ever!

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

The acting in this movie is really good.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

THE INITIATION is a middling slasher of the 1980s with a few elements to recommend it but which mainly has a jaded, seen-it-all-before feel. The story is about a group of sorority house sisters who decide to spend the night in an old building in order to scare each other to death, but they didn't reckon on the presence of a psychotic killer in the vicinity who works his or her way through the cast, one by one. It's not a particularly gory slasher, although it has its moments, and it's not particularly frightening either. The setting is atmospheric but the characters tend to be annoying more than appealing, with the exception of Daphne Zuniga (SPACEBALLS, THE FLY II) who is very good in the lead role. Vera Miles and Clu Gulager show up playing her parents.

In the eighties drive-ins were dying off and grindhouse theaters were for the most part limited to larger cities. The rest of the country found their horror fix at the mom and pop video stores. The influx of horror films was massive and titles ranged from terrible low budget flicks to inspired films that rose above financial restrictions. Minor studios were churning out movie after movie to satisfy the home viewing crowds and the result was some movies that were more entertaining than expected if not completely memorable. THE INTIATION falls into this category.Daphne Zuniga stars as Kelly, a young college student pledging to the Delta Ro Kai sorority and dealing with the hazing that entails. The daughter of wealthy Dwight and Francis (Clu Gulager and Vera Miles), she is resented by at least one sorority sister who makes her initiation unbearable.At the same time Kelly has been dealing with a frightening set of dreams where she sees a burned man. Looking for help she turns to a professor doing research, Peter (James Read). His team studies Kelly and does test on her when she sleeps to help find the reason for her constant battle with these dreams.Both of these issues come to a head when the final test she's put through with her fellow pledges is to spend the night in a mall complex owned by her father. They must get by the guard and perform certain tasks throughout the night. Of course her nemesis in the sorority and a few of her friends have plans to make the night difficult for the pledges. But none of them is aware of a stalker that has been following Kelly with murder in mind. Characters are killed off one by one as we try and figure out who is behind it all. Does it have anything to do with the person in her dreams? Who will survive? The movie is an effective thriller that holds your interest from the get go. The low budget means that everything on the screen is put there with a skill that makes the film look much better than you would think the money would allow. The story is a solid one though done but holds elements of another horror film made just 4 years prior (I won't say what since it would become a major spoiler) that was done better and for more money. Still this movie offers enough differences that it creates its own story and fan base at the same time. It's also great to see actors like Miles and Gulager known for their roles in past horror films given roles here.Arrow Video is releasing this one and as with all their releases they've strived to make it the best. The 1080p restoration is derived from original film elements. Extras include a brand new commentary track by The Hysteria Continues, a new interview with actor Christopher Bradley, a new interview with actress Joy Jones, the theatrical trailer, a reversible sleeve with newly commissioned artwork by Justin Osbourn and for the first pressing copies only a collector booklet with new writing on the film by critic James Oliver.If you're a fan a horror films you'll want to pick this up. If you remember the days of perusing the shelves for horror movies at the local mom and pop video stores, you'll want to add this to your shelf. And if you just enjoy a solid movie with a few scares and a decent story then this is one you'll want to see.

The Initiation is definitely one of the better 80's horror films. A sorority pledge named Kelly Fairchild is have a recurring dream that holds the key to something traumatic from her childhood. She tells her college professor about it and he starts digging into the family secret surrounding the dream. All of this is going on while the sorority she is in is planning an initiation for Kelly and some of her friends. They have to spend the night in a mall which Kelly's family owns. They end up getting locked in the dark mall with a killer running around knocking many of them off one by one. There is a very neat twist with the killer's identity which leads into those recurring dreams Kelly was having.The cast is pretty good. Vera Miles and Clu Gulager are no strangers to the horror genre. Miles was in Psycho 1 and 2, and Gulager was in A Nightmare on Elm St 2. Daphne Zuniga does good in the lead, and Hunter Tylo (famous from the Bold and the Beautiful) does a good job as well. The setting of the dark spooky mall after hours is very well done. Elevator doors opening, a killer lurking in almost every shadow, and the overall effect of being in a dark mall overnight is just creepy. The murders are sort of gory, one in particular involves one of the girls being stabbed repeatedly at the night watchman's desk.The story of Kelly and her family makes the movie very watchable and adds a good twist to the end of it all. The acting is pretty good and there is a creepiness about the whole being trapped in a mall with a killer on the loose. Definitely check this out if you like horror, especially 80's horror movies.8/10

Vera Miles was featured in two Alfred Hitchcock movies:"Psycho" and mainly "The wrong man" in which she was remarkable.So when you had been directed for two classics by a genius ,the only way to go was down as far as thrillers were concerned.Vera Miles had taken on the part of Lola in "Psycho II" with so so results.She continued in the horror vein with "The initiation "which is not bad:it's abysmal ;awful directing,laughable lines (bad jokes about sex as usual), mediocre acting (even Miles cannot do anything with her part of a mother with a racy past).The "intellectual" side about Freud and the dreams ,represented by a bland professor (he will probably get a Mickey Mouse doc degree) and his not-very-attractive assistant ,does not show any improvement on the forties shrink movies,the likes of Siodmak's "The dark mirror"(1946) or Hitchcock's himself ("Spellbound" ) (1945) Beginning as a female forerunner of "the skulls" ,"the initiation" becomes a poor man's "spellbound" to end up as a "Friday the thirteenth " in a department store .Of course there are plenty of teenagers and there's a killer at large