{"id":9848,"date":"2024-12-10T18:06:45","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T23:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9848"},"modified":"2024-12-10T18:06:45","modified_gmt":"2024-12-10T23:06:45","slug":"the-initiation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/10\/the-initiation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Initiation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Initiation <\/strong>(1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, full frontal nudity, sexual content\/references, language, alcohol use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Larry Stewart\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Charles Pratt Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Gabriel Black and Lance Ong\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: George Tirl\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 27, 1984 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast:\u00a0Vera Miles, Clu Gulager, Daphne Zuniga, James Read, Marilyn Kagan, Robert Dowdell, Frances Peterson,\u00a0Deborah Morehart (Hunter Tylo), Paula Knowles, Trey Stroud, Peter Malof, Joy Jones, Mary Davis Duncan, Rusty Meyers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0One thing\u2019s for certain about slasher movies; filmmakers will never run out of ideas. That’s because they just keep using the same scenarios over and over again. It’s always pretty much the same, a bunch of horny idiots putting themselves in a dangerous situation involving a deformed homicidal maniac in a confined space. In\u00a0The Initiation<\/strong>, a bunch of mindless sorority pledges get locked in an upscale shopping mall as part of their initiation. Their mission, to steal the night watchman’s uniform. And guess what? They’re not alone, there’s a killer on the loose in the mall. But I’m getting ahead of myself here, there’s more to the story.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Before I get into the plot, I\u2019d like to express my disappointment at New World for not taking advantage of a golden opportunity to shamelessly sell The Initiation <\/strong>as a gimmick movie. There\u2019s a surprise twist at the end. I won\u2019t say what, but most viewers probably won\u2019t see it coming. The studio could have done something similar to Psycho and Happy Birthday to Me. The tagline could have read something like this: \u201cThe makers humbly implore you not to give away the ending. Due to its shocking nature, no one will be seated during the final ten minutes.\u201d It might have piqued the curiosity of indecisive moviegoers deciding what to see on a Friday or Saturday night. [Insert heavy sigh] I hate to see a missed opportunity like this.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Kelly Fairchild (Zuniga, Spaceballs), one of the Delta Ro Kai pledges, has recurring nightmares about something terrible that happened when she was a child. Or maybe it didn\u2019t. She doesn\u2019t know because she can’t remember anything before the age of nine. Yes, our old pal amnesia! A psychology major (of course!), she goes to Dr. Peter Breck (Read, Eight Men Out), her handsome young TA who just happens to be conducting a study of nightmares. This doesn’t please her overbearing, wealthy mother (Miles, Psycho) who’d rather her daughter not exacerbate her delicate condition. Could it be Mom and her stepdad Dwight (Gulager, The Return of the Living Dead) are keeping something from her? Might it have something to do with a recently escaped mental patient they seem to know?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile, bitchy\u00a0sorority leader Megan (Peterson, The Trip to Bountiful) orders Kelly to steal her stepfather’s keys to the mall (he owns the place) and deliver them to her for the initiation prank. Along with two other pledges, virginal Marcia (Kagan, Foxes) and slutty Alison (Morehart\/Tylo, The Bold and the Beautiful), Kelly goes along with the prank and heads to the employee’s locker room to obtain a night watchman’s uniform. Megan and three guys from their brother fraternity sneak into mall and set out to scare the pledges. Then there’s the unseen killer who has a penchant for sinking a hand-held gardening cultivator into chests and necks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I give credit to the makers of\u00a0The Initiation<\/strong>\u00a0for trying to do something a little different even if it does cause it to be convoluted and confusing. Since I\u2019m unable to alleviate things without dropping spoilers, I\u2019ll only say Kelly\u2019s nightmare turns out to be a repressed memory. But you probably figured that out already, didn\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

\u00a0My primary complaint about\u00a0The Initiation<\/strong>\u00a0is that it’s not as bloody as it should be. Besides the aforementioned garden implement, the killer dispatches two victims with a bow and arrow, one with an axe to the face, another with a harpoon gun and decapitates one unlucky dope with a machete prompting another character to comment that this person would forget their head if it weren’t attached. The movie has a fairly respectable body count of 10, but the gorehound in me wanted more of the red stuff. At least the movie has plenty of hot babes and a fair amount of nudity, something that absolutely appealed to 16YO Movie Guy 24\/7.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It’s cool to see a couple of horror movie vets like Miles and Gulager in action; the presence of established actors is always an asset to B-level horror\u00a0movies like\u00a0The Initiation<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/strong>Zuniga does a good job in her first leading role. Horror buffs will remember she made her debut in 1982’s The Dorm That Dripped Blood. As for the rest of the acting, it\u2019s a little better than one expects from movies of this particular genre.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Director Larry Stewart, in his one and only theatrical outing, keeps things interesting with nifty ideas like the frat party where guests come dressed as their favorite repressed desire. I also got a kick out of Peter\u2019s bespectacled lab assistant Heidi (Jones), a Girl Friday with a lot of spunk.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As far as slasher flicks go,\u00a0The Initiation<\/strong>\u00a0isn’t too bad. It\u2019s pretty good actually. For me, it got better with repeat viewings. I just wish it didn\u2019t skimp on the gore. Oh well, I guess you can\u2019t have it all. One thing\u2019s for sure, it\u2019ll make you think twice about \u201charmless\u201d college pranks. You never know when a deranged killer is going to show up to spoil the fun.\"\"<\/p>\n

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The Initiation (1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, full frontal nudity, sexual content\/references, language, alcohol use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Larry Stewart\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Charles Pratt Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Gabriel Black and Lance Ong\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: George Tirl\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 27, 1984 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast:\u00a0Vera Miles, Clu Gulager, Daphne Zuniga, James Read, Marilyn Kagan, Robert Dowdell, Frances […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/The-Initiation-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9848"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10117,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9848\/revisions\/10117"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}