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.

Uninvited

Hey gang, welcome back to 80 Horror Throwback. So I have to say the notion of a Killer Cat film outside Poe's Black Cat via Lucio Fulci is foreign territory. Seen enough Killer Dog flicks than you can shake a stick at. So why not add a few more unlikely scenarios. Say for example, a mafia don hosting a party on his yacht in the Caribbean? Scientists tinkering with Fluffy's DNA creating a virtual monster? This is Uninvited a.k.a. Killer Cat

They gave him one too many shots.

Yup sadly only one English Alternative Title this time around. What can you do?   Our film was written and directed by Greydon Clark (Black Shampoo, Angel's Revenge, Final Justice, Dark Future, Mad Dog Coll and Star Games) so yes there is an exploitation background and two of his films have featured on MST3K so you know we may have some chop in the water with this one.

With our instrumental and credits interspersed with a mild bit of exposition, our two doctors believe the test subject has a tumor ranging inside of it (Obligatory Arnold quote: "Eet's not a Tumah!) so you know PETA and ASPCA are already annoyed. Our subject is a fluffy orange tabby that looked a bit disturbed at a impeding shot they were going to give him when he he bolts away. Should they have closed the door? Hmm, sound thinking but we don't have time for rational thought.

A further note is one of the doctors calls for radiation security. So now we have armed men in hazmat suits? The furball is nuclear??! What the nine hells is that about? Tranqing him, the security team thinks they got him (It's a trick, get an ax.) and he proceeds to go sick house on them, spraying cherry pie all over the walls. Yes some bizarre mutation allowing him to house another creature inside of him like a host to a parasite (Thanks for the spoiler reveal in 3 minutes and forty-eight seconds!) allowing him to skibble away with POV shots that would have been better served on a Jeeper Creeper because the shot looks like either a human hunkered over or a Great Dane with a Go Pro.

Dr Grady (Greydon Clark) and his lab assistant (Only titled as Lab Assistant) Paul proceed to lower mesh metal gates in a parking lot have secured the building and they're going after the cat. Yeah best of luck with that. I expect Boysenberry blood spatter similar to the previous cherry pie gunk. FYI, the stock cat sound effects in ADR is really limited and slightly ridiculous.

Subplot 2 is two girls trying to find a hotel for Spring Break are aided by a mysterious Mr. Graham (Alex Cord of Route 66, The Brotherhood, Police Sotry, Airwolf, Airwolf TV Movie and Fire from Below), a shady fellow living in the hotel. Hmm... the plot thickens? Suzanne (Shari Shattuck of Hot Child in the City, Freddy's Nightmares, Goddess of Love, Mad About You, Death Spa, Dallas and Silk Stalkings) and Bobbie (Clare Carey of Zombie High, Waxwork, Coach So Little Time, Point Pleasant and Jericho) are just a tad clueless to the bright neon sign over Graham's head that says: I AM A MAFIOSO but it happens.

Tee hee.  We have bewbs.

Graham needs to tend to a "meeting" with his "associates" Mike (George Kennedy of The Silent Witness, Have Gun- Will Travel, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte,Airport, The Naked Gun, Dallas and The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear) and Albert (Clu Galager of Have Gun- Will Travel, The Rebel, The Tall Man, The Virginian, The Return of the Living Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, Walker, Texas Ranger and Feast), to go over Subplot 3 of the Mafia angle and a deal of great importance.

It seems their weaselly trader/banker Darryl (Michael Holden of Automan, Freddy's Nightmares,Cheers, L.A. Law, Reasonable Doubts, Fallout and 24) is having a devil of a time, money laundering. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has been snooping around the irregularities of flux of money is getting paranoid being small potatoes and knows if he screws up he will have 10 to 25 years with a cellmate/boyfriend name of Bubba. A hot tub bubbly bath of drowning later and we know Darryl's not gonna flip.

Vic Vega didn't age well.

Felonious feline forays to the dock, sneaks on aboard the yacht and the body count starts racking up. Again it's a cat. Regardless of its mutation, it's called a hammer. They're five bucks. BONK! BONK!

The puppetry is fair, but it doesn't exactly strike fear into my heart. The husband/wife duo Jim and Debi Boulden (Predator, White fang, Strays, Strange Days, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch) built a nasty looking tabby but again not terror inducing as a whole regardless of the professional creation and the camera blocking.

I am told this particular flick wound up in Rifftrax via Michael Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett so yes you may want to watch that version than this straight through. An additional amusement with the level of gore, nudity and blood spattering against the bulk heads, this cinematic creation fell under PG-13.

A ratings error or did it go straight to video in the day and no one was paying attenion? I do not have all the answers on that one. With 90 minutes on the clock, it is distracting enough for unintentional humor and yes I would say it is a good bad movie for those that love them. So if you want some mindless violence, jiggly girl gallivanting and carnage candy, well this is the film for you. 

This is my stop, Tex!