The Initiation

Hello again my readers and welcome back for more 80s Horror Throwback. What could be more 80s than what we already experienced? Well, how about an obscure 1984 maniac slasher film that didn't get a massive collective of sequels? Yeah I know that many of you are confused but not every low budget slasher film was deemed necessary or worthy of sequels. Now look at some of those Fridays and Halloweens and tell me if they did a decent job all the way through. No instead of griping about lack of continuity or grasp of temporal mechanics, let's give view to actor turned director Larry Stewart in his incursion into horror. This is The Initiation.

So that Lonestar guy just starts hitting on me. Ewwww...

A gaggle of sorority sisters jiggling and giggling while a deranged nutter butter stalks them? Let me guess, he escaped a secured maximum wacko basket, visited the local hardware store and is on the loose?

Our film's location is Dallas/ Ft. Worth so you got a lot of ground to cover.  Our story focuses around Kelly Fairchild (Daphne Zuniga of The Sure Thing, Modern Girls, Spaceballs, Last Rites,Melrose Place, Monkey in the Middle adn Beyond Paradise), our plucky protagonist who has a recurring dream of a strange man burning to death, screaming and flailing himself inside her childhood house. Seriously 80s, did any of the teen protagonists have a pseudo-quasi, normal childhood? If that wasn't stress enough, Kelly is taking part in initiation for her sorority house. A group of pledges have to break into her dad's department store after hours with several of her friends. Simultaneously, miles away from all this gallivanting; a sanitarium has a riot, nutters get free and a nurse has been forked to death. (I WROTE FORKED, PERVS!).

NO ONE ESCAPES THE CLAW!!!!

Mother and Father Fairchild cracked me up as it is Frances (Vera Miles of The Searchers, Psycho, Follow Me, Boys!, The Spirit is Willing, Hotel, Murder, She Wrote and Separate Lives) and Dwight (Clu Gulager of The Killers, The Last Picture Show, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, Uninvited, The Return of the Living Dead, Gunfighter, Feast, Piranha 3DD, and Blue Jay). I guess more Clu Gulager equals boobs and gore for your horror film. That morning, Frances and Dwight have been notified of the escape as if a dark secret is about to rear its ugly head. Those aren't Dwight's real boobs!!! GASP!! Uh I mean Angela's a boy!!! Um Ricky has a psychic link to an annoying blind girl?

Jinkies, Kelly being a good girl is a bit concerned for the evening's event as she goes to hang out with Peter (James Read of North and South, North and South, Book II, Legally Blonde, American Dreams and Charmed)to work on her thesis for psychology and hopes to understand her nightmares. It just means you into Rick James, baby. That's all.

Yes Debbie, they're real. k?

Back at the department store, the night porter has the life expectancy of a Starfleet red shirt. Now the killer has free reign of the multi-level store. Now to steal all the parachute pants and linen suit jackets! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Kelly, Marcia (Marilyn Kagan of Foxes, Mork & Mindy, Hart to Hart, The Ladies Club and Ellen) and Alison all agreed to split up to look for these uniforms for the initiation. Y'know, instead of the girls sticking together and Kelly leading them all to where the uniforms would be. Cause that would make sense!

While the bodies are stacking up like cord wood, Peter does a work-through with the microfilm and news clippings of convenience describing Kelly's childhood fire as a floor manager at Dwight's store.

Is the killer this Mr. Crispy? Can nothing be done to stop the maniac? What of the secret of the Yeti?

The Bold and the Beautiful fans should get a kick out of seeing Hunter Tylo a.k.a. Dr. Taylor Hayes as Alison in this flick. This is assuming The Bold and the Beautiful fans read my blog.

So with a few plot twists, a red herring here and there, this isn't a bad slasher. Daphne's performance stands out the most because she is really trying to emote and it shows. It had some genuine kill counts, some impressive gore effects, the acting was solid and honestly it was creepy. It would have been creepier, if I didn't see the writing on the wall of 80s tropes coming to fruition. That's okay. I have seen a fair amount of Horror than most.

He died as he lived. Mistaken for wood.