...alright, folks!! Let's see a raise of hands out there, whose partial joy of one's bygone high school years, was spent hanging out with friends, at the local shopping mall. With a hand elatedly raised high, yes, this viewer most assuredly engaged in this adolescent ritual...a demandant after-school prerequisite...a cartel of your best buds, or on some nights, just your best gal...a mass invasion of the food court...checking out the record stores and game shops...emptying a pocketful of quarters, obliterating asteroids, saving monkey-enslaved princesses and chomping on ghost-guarded power pills, at the arcade...and seeing the latest blood-spattered horror flickage at the multiplex. In a time when one's first taste of splattery cinema was the one-two-three punch of the original "Halloween", "Dawn of the Dead" & "Friday the 13th", and the onslaught of horror films to come, was just short of emphasizing a preponderance of holiday-based horrors (...jeez, didn't any holiday miss the ravages of horror filmmakers?? Oh wait...hey, how about that?? Arbor Day wasn't touched...horror filmmakers, take note), the idealist possibility of horrible horrors at a shopping mall weren't fully and wholly considered (...even after the siege of Romero zombies), especially after the more reflectively exuberant fun of hanging out at the mall was joyously upheld, with a certain little comedy ditty, in and the about the area of fictional Ridgemont High. That all changed, in the excellent '80's, when even a wayward and nocturnally covert jaunt at a shopping mall or department store proved to be quite horrific...even deadly, in notables like 1984's "Night of the Comet", 1986's "Chopping Mall", 1988's "Hide and Go Shriek", 1987's "The Outing" (...oh, OK...that was a museum, not a mall), as well as a quaint and underappreciated little whodunit slasher entry from 1984, entitled "The Initiation"...
...Kelly, an attractive and well-to-do, albeit slightly troubled college girl...plagued by repeated, surrealistic nightmares of herself as a child, watching a mysterious man in her past, hideously burned alive...is one of several candidates, pledging a popular, though snooty sorority. Determined to make her mark in this venue, despite her personal problems (...her parents suspiciously brush off her nightmares as merely something stress-induced), Kelly takes up the suggested challenge, that she and her fellow pledges not only spend the night at her father's department store, in the local shopping mall, but also, bring back one of the mall security guard's uniforms, as proof of their nocturnal endeavor. In the midst of preparing for this challenge, Kelly hooks up with a young assistant professor at the school, who claims to be able to squelch her plaguing nightmare problems, by studying her dreams and influencing her ability to handle her ghastly visions. Events begin to take a mysterious...even deadly turn, when growing reports of a mental hospital escapee, with a seemingly vengeful penchant for killing, puts everyone on edge...especially Kelly, as the gruesome and bloody deaths of locals...even some of her friends...seem to suspiciously happen all around her...even in the midst of carrying out her assigned pledge challenge, in a darkened and locked-down shopping mall. Do Kelly's nightmares having anything to do with the horrific goings-on...involving her in something much more sinister than her pledge undertaking?? What do her parents know, that they aren't telling her?? And what is the identity of the psycho killer, hiding in the shadows...waiting to strike again??...
...now...uh, quite candidly, and right off the bat, this viewer cannot help but admit to a couple of things: Firstly...how could anyone (...like myself) have possibly missed this one, when it was originally released?? Did it genuinely get theatrical screen play?? One might have even remembered seeing this one on the video shelves, but upon recollection, the box...which reflected the original poster art...wasn't too particularly attractive or attention-getting, and most might have passed on it, while perusing the rental selection (...much like myself). One might have even had it in one's collection for years, without giving it a chance (...uh, like myself). And now that this viewer has finally seen this rather quaint little horror film...given a resounding follow-up kick to the butt for passing up on it, all this time..this brings us to the second point, which is...hey, how about that?? Why, this little horror ditty is pretty damn cool. Likable, or at the very least interesting and intriguing characters. An engaging sense of mystery, which compellingly draws the viewer in. Moments of gripping suspense and uneasy tension. Gasp-inducing killings...effectively shocking and gruesome, but not too over-the-top and exploitative. An ironic, albeit poignantly contrived ending, reminiscent of the greater measure of a self-parodied attitude, later exuded in the 'Scream' film franchise. And some surprising starring appearances, both fledgling and veteran...
...then up & coming actress Daphne Zuniga (...sporting an 'introducing' credit, here...even though she already had a few productions under her belt...including the splatter horror cult classic, "The Dorm That Dripped Blood", a year earlier), just a stone's throw from her notably starring performance in the riotous 1985 comedy, "The Sure Thing", a year later, stars as Kelly...our problem gal, in "The Initiation"...giving a compelling characterization of someone clearly trying to bridle her inner demons...exuding a brave face, in the midst of her peers, as well as pending sorority challenges...a strong character, but vulnerable, when her guard is down. Also with something to hide, though of a different caliber, are her suspiciously secretive parents, Frances and Dwight Fairchild, as portrayed by veteran actors Vera Miles and Clu Gulager...both hardly strangers to the horror genre (...she, of 1960's "Psycho", and 1983's "Psycho II", amongst others...and he, of course, of 1985's "Return of the Living Dead", and almost countless others, in a career that respectably spans almost 60 years, in films and television), and here, affording slightly stuffy characters of 'hmmmm' intrigue, though derivative of 'parent' movie characters, who might tend to keep secrets from their offspring, in order to protect them...
...seemingly very underappreciated...often brushed off as derivative...and rarely spoken of amongst even seasoned horror circles, "The Initiation" is actually quite a surprise horror gem...culled from the notorious '80's 'splatter film' era...which definitely bears checking out...or perhaps re-discovering. Regrettably, much like some of their previous re-issues, Arrow Video offers little here, as far as extras, and the presented print itself does seem a bit dreamy...fuzzy, which in retrospect, genuinely works for the film in certain scenes, considering some of the dream themes explored, in the plotline. Nonetheless, despite these negligible flaws, this edition of "The Initiation" does make for a reasonably hearty, blood-curdling evening of thrills and chills...satisfying, and indeed recommended.....
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