Reviewed by JONATHAN LEWIS:         


THE INITIATION. New World Pictures, 1984. Vera Miles, Clu Gulager, Daphne Zuniga, James Read, Marilyn Kagan, Robert Dowdell. Director: Larry Stewart.

   First thing you need to know about the The Initiation is that there’s gratuitous violence and nudity. It’s a mid-1980s slasher film geared toward a teenage audience, so what do you expect? Second thing you need to know is that the plot, which includes too many standard horror film tropes to count, doesn’t end up making a whole lot of sense.

   If you accept these two caveats and just go with it, you might find yourself as I did: surprisingly enthralled by a low-budget horror film that punches well above its weight and ends up being far memorable than it actually deserves to be.

   Clu Culager and Vera Miles portray Dwight and Frances Fairchild, an upper middle class suburban Texan couple. They seemingly have it all. He’s well known in real estate and is the owner of a large department store. She’s a little high strung, but there’s a good reason for that. She’s constantly worried about her college age daughter, Kelly Fairchild (Daphne Zuniga) who suffers from repeated nightmares. Vivid ones in which she sees herself as a young girl stabbing a strange man who is subsequently consumed in a horrific fire.

   Scary stuff made even scarier by the fact that this is a particularly stressful time for Kelly. You see, she’s pledged a sorority and this is Hell Week where new recruits have to run the proverbial gauntlet. Fortunately, she’s got a handsome psychology graduate student (James Read) by her side. And he’s not only a budding love interest! He’s also an expert in parapsychology who comes to suspect that Daphne’s bad dreams aren’t dreams at all, but rather are memories of something terrible that happened in her past.

   But what? Could Kelly’s traumatic visions have something to do with an escaped inmate who has come back to exact bloody revenge on her father and all those rebellious and rambunctious teenagers who get in his way? And what’s the deal with Kelly and her mother looking at their reflections in the mirror all the time? By the time the film wraps up, all such questions will be resolved. Whether or not you consider the answer to the great mystery about who Kelly is to be a satisfactory one, however, will largely depend on your tolerance for gaping plot holes and – how should I put this – “inventive” screenwriting.

   The Initiation isn’t a great movie, but it’s a good one for its genre. Plus it’s always a pleasure to see Clu Gulager in a horror movie. He steals every scene he’s in. That has to count for something.