The Initiation

Production: Bruce Lansbury (Executive Producer) — Scott Winant (Producer) — Jock Gaynor (Executive Producer)

Screenplay: Charles Pratt, Jr. (Writer)

Music: Gabriel Black (Original Music Composer) — Lance Ong (Original Music Composer)

Cinematography: George Tirl (Director of Photography)

Kelly Fairchild is a college student and a member of the Delta Ro Kai student fraternity. For several years, the young woman has had a strange recurring dream where she sees a man dying burned. To get help interpreting this dream, she turns to a university professor. Meanwhile, the day of the initiation to join the fraternity arrives: Kelly, along with some friends, will have to sneak into a supermarket and spend the night there, but in the large store there is also a ferocious killer who begins to reap victims... A negligible slasher movie born in the wake of successes like "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween"; the story is always the same: a group of wild and party-loving young people who are mowed down by a mad assassin whose identity, as usual, will only be revealed in the final twist. Therefore, originality close to zero, but some good moments of suspense and a couple of murder sequences "well made".

A mad slasher is loose in Dallas, including the local Mall

Several sorority pledges in the Dallas area must undergo initiation by breaking into a local mall at night. Unfortunately, some mentally disturbed patients have escaped the asylum and so a psycho is on the loose, showing up at the mall during the prank.

I thought "The Initiation” (1984) was going to be an occultic horror-thriller in the manner of "The Initiation of Sarah" (1978) and "Satan's School for Girls" (1973), but that’s not the case, although the setting is similar. This is a slasher akin to "Happy Birthday to Me" (1981), just with less-polished production values and the milieu of the Dallas-Fort Worth area as opposed to the Northeast.

I wasn’t impressed with the beginning, but the flick eventually won me over despite the TV movie vibe (with edge, including nudity and gore). It also has a superior ending to the eye-rolling one in “Happy Birthday to Me.” It’s worth checking out for aficionados of 80’s slashers.

The rough start can be attributed to the original director being removed from the production due to falling behind schedule and exceeding the budget. He had Euro arthouse sensibilities and this clashed with the producers’ desire for a mainstream slasher.

The film runs 1 hour, 37 minutes, and was shot in Dallas, including Dallas Market Center for the Mall scenes, as well as nearby Fort Worth.

GRADE: B-

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THE INITIATION