The Initiation

Plot synopsis:
Kelly Fairchild is a university student who has suffered from a recurring nightmare in which a strange man is burning to death inside her childhood home. Adding to her stress, Kelly is also about to take part in her sorority's initiation ritual, which entails her and a group of pledges breaking into her wealthy father's multi-level department store after hours. Megan, the head of the sorority, comes up with the idea in hopes of getting Kelly into trouble, out of jealousy. Kelly, her friend Marcia, and roommate Alison are the three main pledges.At a sanitarium 300 miles away, several inmates break out of the building and murder a nurse. The following morning, Kelly's parents, Frances and Dwight, receive a phone call from the sanitarium notifying them of the incident. That afternoon, Kelly pitches an idea for her term paper to Peter , the graduate assistant in her psychology course. Kelly explains her dream to Peter, and tells how she had lost memory of her early childhood after falling out of a treehouse, leaving her with injuries that put her into a coma.At dinner, Frances forbids Kelly's meetings with Peter, who is attempting to analyse her nightmare. Meanwhile, while Dwight is outside starting his car, he is attacked by an unseen assailant, who impales him in the neck with a garden fork and decapitates him with a machete. Frances goes outside and sees Dwight's car driving down the road, assuming he left the house.The following night at the department store, the night porter is murdered while doing rounds. Shortly after, Kelly, Marcia, and Alison arrive there to steal the porter's uniform for their initiation pledge. The three split up, and Kelly heads to the lounge upstairs to get one of the spare uniforms. Meanwhile, Megan lets Chad, Ralph, and Andy into the department store to scare the girls. Chad and Ralph scare them by rolling a bowling ball down the hallway; the girls then attempt to leave the store, but find themselves locked inside. Meanwhile, Megan and Andy make out inside one of the shops, and begin playing hide and seek. Andy is murdered when the killer emerges from an elevator and slams a hatchet into his head. Shortly after, the killer shoots Megan through the chest with an arrow and her body collapses, breaking a vase. Kelly and Marcia hear the commotion, and run into Ralph and Chad who are hiding in a dressing room.At the university, Peter comes across newspaper clippings detailing the fire Kelly described in her dream; the articles reveal the burning man's identity as Jason Randall, a floor manager at the Fairchild department store, who was married to Frances; he believes Kelly's dream to be a memory of her biological father, Jason, being burned in an altercation with Frances' lover, Dwight, whom Kelly believes to be her real father. A recent article on the inmates' revolt at the sanitarium reveals Jason was a groundskeeper and an inmate there, and among those who escaped.Stuck inside the store, Kelly, Marcia, and Alison drink wine together with Ralph and Chad. Alison and Chad leave to use the bathroom, and Alison discovers the body of the night porter. Panicked, she runs into the men's bathroom to get Chad, and finds him in a bathroom stall with his throat slashed. Kelly goes into the bathroom to investigate, while a frantic Alison goes downstairs to the security desk. Inside the bathroom, Kelly sees her name written on the mirror in blood.Alison is viciously stabbed to death at the security desk, and the sounds of her screaming are broadcast over the store's intercom system. Meanwhile, Peter drives to the Fairchild house to tell Frances what he has discovered; Frances tells him that the police have just notified her that Dwight's mutilated body was found inside the trunk of his car, parked two blocks from his department store. At the store, Ralph is shot dead with a crossbow in front of Marcia, who flees to find Kelly. They hide in a freight elevator inside the building, which is infiltrated by the killer, who pulls Marcia into the elevator shaft as the doors close. Kelly escapes and flees into the store's boiler room, where she finds Marcia's corpse being dragged away by the killer and encounters the burned Jason Randall. He chases her to the roof, and she pushes him off, killing him.Peter and Frances arrive at the store and find Jason's body lying on the ground outside. Inside, Peter sees who he believes to be Kelly standing in the store foyer and embraces her; she then stabs him in the stomach. Kelly runs into the room, and is faced with a mirror image of herself it is her disturbed twin sister, Terry, who had been institutionalized as a child when Frances left their father and married Dwight, and whom Kelly has no memory of. Just as Terry is about to murder Kelly, she is shot to death by Frances. The film ends as Peter is taken away in an ambulance, while Kelly stares at her mother in disbelief.

Tags: cult, murder, violence, prank

Review:
The initiation involves the girls breaking into a shopping mall, but having a homicidal escaped murderer locked in with them wasn't part of the plan!The Initiation is a slasher flick that delivers the "goods" for horror fans.
Plus, there's some plot twists, a few veteran actors, and a higher-than-average budget to boot!With a fairly solid cast, fiendishly good murder scenes, some tight suspense (especially in the climax), and a bit of style The Initiation is one of the stronger slasher films of its time.
Everything comes to a head on the night Kelly steals the keys to her father's shopping mall for her sorority initiation.
It's not the goriest movie of all time, but there are a few harrowing death sequences and it helps that you really do care about many of the characters.Zuniga makes for a likable heroine and veterans Clu Gulager and Vera Miles offer wonderful support as her secretive parents.
Still, it's Joy Jones who steals the show as Heidi - a Velma-from-Scooby-Doo type who helps trace back the origins of Kelly's troubling dreams.The Initiation is one of the better late entries in the slasher cycle and deserves your time..
(**1/2 out of *****) This okay slasher thriller tries to offer more than the standard slice-and-dice affair by having as its main character a young college student (Daphne Zuniga, a year after her cameo in the wretched "The Dorm That Dripped Blood") who is traumatized by an event in her past that caused her to forget everything up through age ten.
From the opening scene, we already have a pretty good idea of the surprise involving the girl's secretive parents (played by Clu Gulager -- excellent in "Return of the Living Dead," but just mediocre here -- and Vera Miles from "Psycho"), but there's another twist at the very end that, in spite of some clunky hints here and there, is impossible to see coming (it's hardly fair, but it still provides a bit of a jolt.)  With all the background and character development out of the way in the first half hour or so, we finally get to the more-familiar second half, where a group of sorority babes (including Zuniga) and frat boys break into a department building at night as part of an initiation stunt and are subsequently killed off by a maniac who uses a variety of gardening tools and other sharp objects.
People are shot with arrows, shot with guns, shot with spears, stabbed, axed, and decapitated until the surprise killer is finally revealed (and it's probably not who you think.)  Gaping plot holes abound, but, all in all, this one isn't too bad (and, besides, you're not supposed to pay attention to that kinda stuff in these kindsa movies anyway.)HIGHLIGHT:  The pretty, blonde sorority girl happens to be holding the public address intercom microphone when she is attacked at the security guard's booth, and her shrieks echo throughout the entire building..
When it comes to good horror ideas, nothing gets better than a bunch of sorority girls being killed at a mall after midnight.There are few things in this movie that are funny.
"The Initiation" is the ultimate sorority house slasher film that stands better than many the more popular ( "The House on Sorority Row," "Girl's Nite Out," and "Killer Party") films of the same "genre." After a relatively dream-like, and confusing opening sequence, we are introduced to Kelly Fairchild (Daphne Zuniga) who is set to pledge the most prestigous Sorority at her college.
Kelly has some more dreams, she starts seeing a college professor who specializes in memory regression, and finds out that for her pledge, she and the other pledges must break into her father's mall (the strangest looking mall I have ever seen) and steal the security officer's uniform, all within about the first half hour of the movie.
It's almost like the fine folks at New World Pictures where recycling their own material this time.Folks who are fans of the cookie cutter "slasher" movies (like myself) will have fun playing the "find the cliché" game.Of course there is the required skin,but the gore is rather lacking for my taste.It's a bit tame as if not to be offensive or over the top.That's always a bad idea in my book.
Allright so "The Initiation" isn't on the same level as "Carrie", "The Stepford Wives" or "Rosemary's Baby" but it is very good compared to other sorrority girl movies like "Blood Sisters."  The Initiation is fun, fast paced, and has a great cast including Vera Miles (PSYCHO), Clu Gulager(A Nightmare on Elm Street 2) and Daphne Zuniga(Melrose Place) Not oscarworthy but deffinetly allright.
** out of ****The Initiation is another one of those sorority-type slasher films where a group of girls are offed one-by-one by a deranged killer.
After that, the film bogs down quite a bit with repetitive hypnosis scenes, and at least one of the twists involving her dreams is entirely predictable, so for the first half, the film hasn't done much at all.But then, cut to the second half, once the girls break into the department store, and are knocked off one-by-one by the killer, and the film suddenly turns from sluggish to suspenseful.
The huge mall works extremely well in the movie's favor, making for a fairly complex setting in which the killer could be hiding anywhere.There are even two scenes of gratuitous nudity, provided by none other than goregous soap star Hunter Tylo (credited here as Deborah Morehart), who happens to look even hotter now then she did 18 years ago!
The rest of the performances are pretty standard, not even Vera Miles or Clu Gulager stand out.The big plot twist at the end is pretty ludicrous, but I happen to like absurd twists in slashers (to an extent and depending on the situation), and at least it ties in believably with the opening.
Oh yeah,this one is similar to "Happy Birthday to Me"(I'm talking here especially about the ending),which I reviewed some months ago,but definitely not better.The acting is rather lame,the disco/party scene is cheesy and amusing(one of the guests is dressed in a giant penis costume-woah!),and the film is quite suspenseful at times.Only a little bit of gore,so gore-hounds will certainly be disappointed.However if you consider yourself a rabid slasher fan give this one a look!Love that axe in the head scene!.
For there initiation, Kelly and her friends have to break into her father's (Clu Gulager) department store and steal the security guard's uniform.
Seems the killer is linked to a reoccuaring nightmare Kelly's been having for years and is part of some deep dark secret her mother (Vera Miles) has been hiding from her.Amateurish first half features bad dialogue, tons of cliches and crude direction, but the second half is an intense, tight, scary, and suspenseful nightmare filled with twist & turns and gruesome murders & special effects.
Kelly (Daphne Zuniga, who gets an "introducing..." credit despite having been in films - including THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1982) - prior to this) is pledging a college sorority and part of her initiation is to break into the upscale shopping mall owned by her father (Clu Gulager) and mother (Vera Miles).
But also Kelly and a few friends are about to undertake a sorority pledge, involving sneaking into a shopping mall one night to steal the security guard's uniform where everything comes together.
However, now she's also got to contend with the American apple pie institution of 'initiation ceremonies', and the one that her friends are putting forward involves sneaking into her father's mall.The plot of this film is all over the place, as we've got far too many ideas going on and they don't all bode well.
This all results in a film with an overlong and frequently tedious first half with only one truly great and suspense-laden scene (set inside a mental asylum) and a very routine and déjà-vu second half with four girls and some frat-boys stalked by a well-armed killer in a mall.
"The Initiation" supposedly introduces Daphne Zuniga (even though she already appeared briefly in a similar kind of movie called "The Dorm that Dripped Blood in 1982) as the cherubic Kelly Fairchild, wannabe Delta Ro Kai sorority member and only daughter of a prominent shopping mall owner.
The murders are sort of gory, one in particular involves one of the girls being stabbed repeatedly at the night watchman's desk.The story of Kelly and her family makes the movie very watchable and adds a good twist to the end of it all.
While trying to understand a frightening reoccurring nightmare, a pledge (Daphne Zuniga) is coaxed into breaking into her father (Clu Gulager)'s department store by her sorority sisters, where a deranged killer targets the girls and their boyfriends.This film's genesis seems pretty standard.
Check out the one with the arrow, it was right on point:) "The Initiation" is very comparable to such films as "Slumber Party Massacre," "House on Sorority Row" and "Scream" As one who frequently watches horror movies, I do recommend this one!.
The Initiation (1984) * 1/2 (out of 4)Kelly (Daphne Zuniga) is a college girl who keeps suffering from the same nightmare about her as a child witnessing a man burning.
It did, however, mark the film debut of Hunter Tylo, a young and attractive model; Daphne Zuniga also plays a memorable role featured as the female lead with 1982's The Dorm That Dripped Blood securely stashed away in her horror repertoire.
The young actors at the time Daphne Zuniga, the actress now known as Hunter Tylo give their all and are quite good in their roles while the male love interest James Read is your basic wooden mannequin as a lead and totally unbelievable in his role..the story has holes big enough to drive a semi through it but i myself just relish the cheesiness of the film and despite it's shortcomings it is enjoyable so i will give it some slack..and when i was young when this movie was made i remember hunter tylo on all my children and though she was hot as she is today and a couple of scenes that she was in shocked me but sometimes actors have to do things when they are not established enough said..get the popcorn going and enjoy.
Another teen slasher served up for us here folks.it's pretty ordinary fare for this genre and has no real stand out moments to separate it from others.The only slightly interesting feature is the casting of Daphne Zuniga and Hunter Tylo long before they were household names in the daytime soap world.Zuniga can live this down probably but Hunter's embarrassment from this film is acute,since her role included a full-frontal nude shower scene(in front of a clothed Zuniga),something she probably would prefer her fans to forget..
Vera Miles was featured in two Alfred Hitchcock movies:"Psycho" and mainly "The wrong man" in which she was remarkable.So when you had been directed for two classics by a genius ,the only way to go was down as far as thrillers were concerned.Vera Miles had taken on the part of Lola in "Psycho II" with so so results.She continued in the horror vein with "The initiation "which is not bad:it's abysmal ;awful directing,laughable lines (bad jokes about sex as usual), mediocre acting (even Miles cannot do anything with her part of a mother with a racy past).The "intellectual" side about Freud and the dreams ,represented by a bland professor (he will probably get a Mickey Mouse doc degree) and his not-very-attractive assistant ,does not show any improvement on the forties shrink movies,the likes of Siodmak's "The dark mirror"(1946) or Hitchcock's himself ("Spellbound" ) (1945) Beginning as a female forerunner of "the skulls" ,"the initiation" becomes a poor man's "spellbound" to end up as a "Friday the thirteenth " in a department store .Of course there are plenty of teenagers and there's a killer at large.
The only reason for me to watch this movie was because it stars the great Daphne Zuniga but I think that this is a jewel for those who love teen horror films..
Plus we also get to spend a considerable amount of time and care for the characters in here before they meet their demise.We are introduced to Kelly, a college student and new-found member of a female sorority, who is suffering from recurring dreams of herself much younger, attempting to brutally attack her father only for a mysterious man to walk in and eventually to be lit on fire.
I watched a lot of slasher films but never had it been set in a large apartment or shopping mall and I thought they would make a really cool environment for a killer to stalk his or her victims.
"The Initiation" has future "Melrose Place" star Daphne Zuniga as Kelly Fairchild, a young college student from a wealthy Dallas family who is partaking in pledge week for the initiation into her sorority.
Unfortunately for Kelly, someone with murder on the mind is close behind them, and the killer may be linked to a bizarre recurring dream she's suffered from her entire life.Far less Gothic than "Hell Night" and considerably less graceful than "The House on Sorority Row", "The Initiation" stands as one of the weaker Greek-themed slashers.
I also thought several of the characters were likable from Hunter Tylo's portrayal of Alison who was fun,entertaining and at times naughty to Vera Miles who plays Frances the mother of Kelly that harbors a dark secret to Marilyn Kagen who plays Marcia who was sweet and probably the most mature out of the girls and the way she tells her friends a story about her past even had me a little shocked which added a more serious tone to her character.
The daughter of wealthy Dwight and Francis (Clu Gulager and Vera Miles), she is resented by at least one sorority sister who makes her initiation unbearable.At the same time Kelly has been dealing with a frightening set of dreams where she sees a burned man.
Much like "Sleepaway Camp" and "Happy Birthday to Me" there is a lot of build up and suspense that may actually hold some audience members, until a crash landing in the end destroys all hope for the film in general.The film's main premise is on young Kelly(Daphne Zuniga, much before Melrose Place, or even "The Sure Thing" for that matter) who has been suffering a reoccurring dream all her life.
Soon, murders begin to happen, and no one knows who is doing them, then on a night when Kelly and some friends are to do their 'initiation' into the college sorority they are attending, which is to frolic in a building owned by Kelly's father, a shopping mall of all places, someone else is watching them.
Yes and No. Ridiculous slasher film starts out slow and boring, then gets a bit interesting when Kelly's past is revealed, and the dreams BEGIN to make sense, but right before the sense can be fully made, the crash boom bang ending occurs and the killer is revealed.
the rest of the cast, including young soap star Hunter Tylo, do their best, but Daphne is the only real actor in this, and so, the film crashes and burns like it's stupid ending!If you want a good shock ending, watch "Clue."It was Daphne Zuniga in the shopping mall with the garden tools!3.5/10.
Another 80s Slasher Gem. Granted, THE INITATION doesn't compare favorably to the best slasher films like HALLOWEEN or the original Friday THE 13TH, but even so it's a surprisingly successful horror film buoyed to some degree by a mystery element that, if ultimately unbelievable, still adds immeasurably to the usual formula of young people being killed by a crazy murderer.Daphne Zuniga stars as a sorority pledge whose usual college problems are magnified by a long history of recurring nightmares.
Meanwhile an unknown stalker is hunting her family and friends, and everything comes to a head in a shopping mall after hours from which the killer is determined no one will escape.THE INITIATION is fairly well-written and directed, with a strong cast (including Clu Gulager and Vera Miles) and some highly effective murder sequences.
The Plot = Kelly Fairchild (Daphne Zuniga) has nightmares involving a man attacking her parents (Vera Miles and Clu Gulager).
Someone else is lurking in the mall and they're only interested in taking lives.The Initiation follows the traditional slasher formula well added stars (Miles and Gulager), young, talented unknowns (Zuniga, Hunter Tylo, James Read), new wave band (Refugee) performing at a party, shower scenes, bloody deaths, etc.
What makes The Initiation a stand out slasher is the strong performances, Larry Stewart's direction, and Charles Pratt's script.The characters are well established and likable, the death scenes have so much impact because of this connection to the cast, the first half is rather quiet but kept me interested right up until the build up towards the end.Daphne Zuniga played the lead heroine really well, after her short lived stint in not so great slasher flick (The Dorm That Dripped Blood), she gets the main role in this movie and she truly shines, I enjoyed the romance subplot between her and her teacher Peter (James Read) who monitors her dreams along with his glamorous assistant Heidi (Joy Jones) just kept me interested all the way through.
This 1984 horror film stars Daphne Zuniga, Vera Miles, James Read, Hunter Tylo and Clu Gulager.
Later we see that a facially burnt man is attending to the grounds at an insane asylum about the same time as patients are released from the place and a nurse is brutally stabbed while attempting to crank her car.Kelly and two other college girls, Marcia(Marilyn Kagan)and Alison(Hunter Tylo, better known for starring on the soap opera THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL)are challenged, via pledge, by sorority sister Megan(Frances Peterson)to steal a security uniform from her "father" Dwight Fairchild's massive mall.