The Initiation (film)

The Initiation is a 1984 American slasher film directed by Larry Stewart, and starring Daphne Zuniga, Vera Miles, Clu Gulager, and James Read. The plot focuses on a sorority member and a group of pledges, who are stalked and murdered during their initiation ritual in a department store after hours.[2]

The Initiation
Theatrical release poster
Directed byLarry Stewart
Produced by
Written byCharles Pratt Jr.
Starring
Music by
  • Gabriel Black
  • Lance Ong
Edited byRonald LaVine
Production
company
Georgian Bay Productions
Initiation Associates
Distributed byNew World Pictures
Release date
  • April 28, 1984 (1984-04-28)
Running time
97 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Filmed in Dallas, Texas in 1983, The Initiation initially had English director Peter Crane attached, though he was fired from the project early into the shoot, after which television director Stewart was hired. The Dallas Market Center and Southern Methodist University served as the primary shooting locations.

The film has been noted for being star Zuniga's first leading role after her minor part in The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982),[3] as well as establishing a contemporary cult following as a midnight movie.

Plot

Since childhood, college student Kelly Fairchild has suffered from a recurring nightmare in which a strange man is burned alive in her childhood home. Hoping to unravel the meaning of the nightmare, Kelly pitches a term project idea to Peter, the graduate assistant in her psychology seminar, about it. Peter agrees to perform a sleep study on Kelly, but her mother, Frances, subsequently forbids it. Meanwhile, at a psychiatric hospital miles away, several patients escape, and a nurse is murdered. Frances is notified of this incident by phone, and informs Kelly's father, Dwight.

Kelly prepares to partake in her sorority's initiation ritual which entails her and a group of other pledges breaking into her father's multilevel department store after hours and stealing the night porter's uniform. Kelly, her friend Marcia, and roommates Alison and Beth are the four main pledges. On the night of the initiation, Dwight departs for a business trip, but is brutally stabbed to death outside his car. The murderer leaves in Dwight's car with his corpse in the trunk.

Just before Kelly and the other pledges arrive at the department store, the night porter is murdered while doing rounds. Beth decides to quit, leaving Kelly, Marcia, and Alison alone. The three split up, and Kelly heads to the lounge upstairs to retrieve one of the spare uniforms. Meanwhile, head sorority sister Megan lets coeds Chad, Ralph, and Andy break into the store to scare the pledges. Shortly after, Andy is killed with a hatchet and Megan is shot to death with a bow and arrow. Ralph and Chad successfully scare Kelly and Marcia by hiding in a dressing room. After uniting with Alison, all five attempt to leave the store, but are locked inside.

At the university, Peter and his colleague, Heidi, 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 at one time married to Frances. Peter suspects that Jason is in fact Kelly's biological father, and that her nightmare is a memory of him being burned in an altercation with Frances' lover Dwight, who subsequently raised Kelly as his own daughter. A recent article on the inmates' revolt at the hospital reveals Jason is a groundskeeper there, and that he was among the prisoners who escaped. Peter drives to the Fairchild residence to notify Frances of his discoveries.

Alison and Chad wander around the store together. While Chad is in the bathroom, Alison discovers the night porter's body, followed by Chad's corpse in a bathroom stall. A traumatized Alison locates Kelly, who instructs her to hide at a security desk on the ground floor. Kelly enters the bathroom and sees Chad's body, as well as her name written in blood on a mirror. Meanwhile, Alison is attacked at the security desk and viciously stabbed to death.

Ralph and Marcia have sex in a retail display bed, before Ralph is shot dead with a harpoon gun. Marcia flees through the store, and is met by Kelly. They seek safety inside a freight elevator, but it is soon infiltrated by the killer, who drags Marcia into the elevator shaft. Kelly escapes and flees into the store's boiler room, where she encounters Jason, whom she assumes to be the killer. He pursues her to the roof, where she bludgeons him with a pipe, causing him to fall to the ground below.

Peter and Frances arrive at the store and find Jason lying on the ground, clinging to life. Inside, Peter sees whom he believes to be Kelly standing in the store foyer and embraces her before she stabs him in the stomach. Kelly stumbles upon the scene and is faced with a reflection of herself: Her disturbed twin sister Terry, who has been institutionalized since childhood when Frances left their father and married Dwight, and of whom Kelly has no memory. Just as Terry is about to murder Kelly, she is shot to death by Frances. The film ends as a wounded Peter is taken away in an ambulance, while Kelly stares at her mother in disbelief.

Cast
  • Daphne Zuniga as Kelly Fairchild / Terry Fairchild
  • Vera Miles as Frances Fairchild
  • Clu Gulager as Dwight Fairchild
  • James Read as Peter Adams
  • Marilyn Kagan as Marcia
  • Robert Dowdell as Jason Randall
  • Patti Heider as Nurse Higgins
  • Frances Peterson as Megan
  • Deborah Morehart as Alison
  • Paula Knowles as Beth
  • Trey Stroud as Ralph
  • Peter Malof as Andy
  • Christopher Bradley as Chad
  • Joy Jones as Heidi
  • Mary Davis Duncan as Gwen

Production

Concept and casting
The film marked the first leading part for Daphne Zuniga, pictured here in 2019

Screenwriter Charles Pratt Jr. wrote the script for the film after being asked to produce a low-budget horror film for producers Jock Gaynor, Bruce Lansbury, and Scott Winant for New World Pictures.[4]

According to Pratt, he initially cobbled together the concept of the sorority initiation pledge taking place within a department store, but the concept had to be reworked when the film scouts were unable to find a suitable location in Dallas available for shooting.[4]

Lead actress Daphne Zuniga was cast in the film following her minor role in the horror film The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982), and was a student at the University of California, Los Angeles at the time of being cast.[4] Recalling the experience, she said: "It was a great part. I got to play twins: a good sister and an evil sister. I got shot in the back on-screen. It was pretty heavy for a first role."[3] The majority of the supporting cast were local actors from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, including Hunter Tylo and Joy Jones, both of whom were students at Brookhaven College.[5]

British director Peter Crane signed on to direct the project, and Vera Miles was cast as the mother of Zuniga's character after a meeting with Crane.[4]

Filming
The campus scenes were filmed at Southern Methodist University

The Initiation was filmed on location in Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas, in the summer of 1983.[6] Director Peter Crane began filming material on the production.[4] Many of the early point-of-view shots in the film and the footage at the psychiatric hospital in the beginning of the film were shot by Crane.[6] After several days of shooting, the shooting schedule had already fallen behind, and Crane was fired and replaced with Larry Stewart, who completed the rest of the film.[6] The difference in technique and style between the two directors accounts for slight aesthetic differences from some of the film's earlier footage.[6]

The multilevel Dallas Market Center served as the location for the Fairchild department store,[7][8] and the crew shot the film during evenings while the building was closed. The campus scenes were filmed at Southern Methodist University, while the dream-lab sequences were shot in an abandoned Holiday Inn hotel, where the production design had refitted a maid's closet to appear as the room.[5]

Release

The Initiation first screened in the United States in the spring of 1984, with showings in Philadelphia beginning on April 28, 1984,[lower-alpha 1] and in Silver Spring, Maryland, beginning on May 12.[11] In some midwestern cities, such as Bloomington, Illinois, it was paired as a drive-in double-feature with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).[12] It was released several months later in Baltimore on September 7, 1984.[13] The Los Angeles Times reported a tentative autumn release of the film in Los Angeles.[14] In several southern U.S. cities, such as Shreveport,[15] Pensacola,[16] and Jackson,[17] the film opened on December 7, 1984.

The film was largely overshadowed at the U.S. box office by Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street, also released in the fall of 1984.[18] It screened sporadically throughout the country, playing in one- or two-week runs.[18] Although it passed the MPAA's restrictions without being cut, the British Board of Film Classification cut nearly a minute of gore from the film, specifically from Hunter Tylo's gruesome death scene.[18]

Critical response and legacy

Joe Baltake of the Philadelphia Daily News wrote that the film was "convoluted, contemporary, and evil...  This is a Freudian slip-of-a-horror-film, far more complex than truly frightening."[9] Rick Lyman of The Philadelphia Inquirer likened the film to its contemporary "sorority girl slasher movies," concluding: "All of this is tied up in a surprise denouement that's about as surprising as, well, a knock-knock joke."[10] The Baltimore Evening Sun's Lou Cedrone wrote that the film was "not so gory as most of the slice-and-dice genre," comparing it to Friday the 13th (1980) and Sleepaway Camp (1983), but added: "The Initiation may be a little better than similar features, if only because it is a little less bloody."[19] In a subsequent review, Cedrone characterized the film as a "Friday the 13th clone," and added: "Vera Miles and Clu Gulager are performers caught in this hapless mess."[20] Candice Russell of the South Florida Sun Sentinel awarded the film one-and-a-half out of four stars, referring to it as "an uncomfortable pastiche of scenes we've seen before," and likened elements of it to Brian De Palma's Sisters (1973).[21]

Following the film's first DVD release in 2002, Film Threat gave it an unfavorable review, writing, "The Initiation is the latest forgotten horror film to receive the Anchor Bay DVD treatment, and I'd be at a loss to tell you why."[22] Film School Rejects, however, said the film "has all the hallmarks of being an awful movie without being an awful movie... it’s fun, and that should count for something."[23] Eric Snider, writing for Film.com in 2012, gave the film a negative review, calling it "a bad movie with bad ideas that are badly executed,"[24] while TV Guide summarized the film as "boring slasher stuff," noting that "Top-billed [Vera] Miles and [Clu] Gulager barely appear in the film, which would make a terrifically dreadful double bill with the similar The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1983), also featuring Zuniga."[25]

Brian Collins, writing for the Alamo Drafthouse's film journal, Birth.Movies.Death., noted that the film "might be worth a look for slasher aficionados—it's far from a perfect film, but there are some unusual elements to it that give it enough personality to overcome its somewhat sluggish pace and TV movie-esque production."[26] Dread Central's Anthony Arrigo observed in a 2016 review "a surprising amount of character depth on display here, more so than similar pictures of the era."[27]

In Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movie, writer Jim Harper called the film a "lackluster effort that never quite lives up to the abilities of its cast," further noting: "Even with the soap opera ending, the film isn't entirely successful, mostly because of the terrible script. There's a wealth of unnecessary jargon and cheap dialogue, not to mention some notable inconsistencies. Zuniga does her best to rise above the bad material and turns in a great performance, but Gulager and Miles sleepwalk through their parts."[28] Horror film scholar Adam Rockoff alternately notes in his book Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, that, "despite its proclivity for laughable dialogue and silly plot twists, [The Initiation] manages to be a fairly entertaining and occasionally frightening film."[29]

Irrespective of the film's critical reception, it has garnered a contemporary cult following.[18]

Home media

The film was released on VHS by Thorn EMI in the 1980s. It was released on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 2002, and was later reissued in 2011 by Image Entertainment's "Midnight Madness" Series.[30]

In August 2016, it was revealed that Arrow Films would be releasing the film for the first time on Blu-ray in both the United States and the United Kingdom.[31] It was released in the United States on November 8, 2016.[32]

Notes
  1. Contemporaneous newspaper sources from Philadelphia date the film as a new release for the weekend of April 28, 1984, and reviews were also published that day.[9][10]

References
  1. Stine 2003, p. 169.
  2. Muir 2012, p. 395–97.
  3. Burke-Block, Candace (June 22, 1987). "Actress Daphne Zuniga: 'I Want To Be A Chameleon'". Sun-Sentinel. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
  4. Sorority Saga – An Interview With Charles Pratt, Jr (Documentary). Arrow Video. May 2016.
  5. Dream Job – An Interview With Joy Jones (Documentary). Arrow Video. May 2016.
  6. The Hysteria Continues (2016). The Initiation (Audio commentary) (Blu-ray). Arrow Video.
  7. Swindall, Damon (April 27, 2012). "The Chronicles of Horror Movie Night: 'The Initiation' (1984)". Horror's Not Dead. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
  8. "The Initiation (1984): Revisiting the psycho-sexual thrills of the slasher that time forgot". What's On TV. Movie Talk. United Kingdom. August 9, 2013. Archived from the original on April 22, 2016.
  9. Baltake, Joe (April 30, 1984). "Comedy, Thriller;: Two for the Rude". Philadelphia Daily News. p. 39 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. Lyman, Rick (April 28, 1984). "Film: A few murders with a gardener's tool". The Philadelphia Inquirer. p. 5-D – via Newspapers.com.
  11. "Silver Spring Drive-In Theater: Now Showing". The Sentinel. May 12, 1984. p. 21 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. "Bloomington Drive-In: The Initiation and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre". June 17, 1984. p. B-4 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. "The Initiation trade advertisement". The Baltimore Sun. September 7, 1984. p. 37 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. "Future Shock Schlock". Los Angeles Times. September 2, 1984. p. 20 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. "The Initiation trade advertisement". The Pensacola News. December 7, 1984. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. "The Initiation trade advertisement". The Times. December 7, 1984. p. 5-D – via Newspapers.com.
  17. "The Initiation trade advertisement". The Clarion-Ledger. December 7, 1984. p. 7D.
  18. "The Initiation". Mondo Digital. August 13, 2013. Retrieved July 9, 2016.
  19. Cedrone, Lou (September 11, 1984). "2 multiple-murder films; both worthless". The Baltimore Evening Sun. p. B5 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. Cedrone, Lou (September 15, 1984). "Film Reviews: The Initiation". The Baltimore Evening Sun. p. 5B – via Newspapers.com.
  21. Russell, Candice (May 15, 1984). "'Initiation': Where have we seen this gore before?". South Florida Sentinel. p. 6D – via Newspapers.com.
  22. Vonder Haar, Pete (November 27, 2002). "Film Threat - The Initiation (dvd)". filmthreat.com. Retrieved July 21, 2012.
  23. Beggs, Scott (October 18, 2012). "The Initiation: 31 Days of Horror". Film School Rejects. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved July 9, 2016.
  24. Snider, Eric (May 8, 2012). "The Initiation (1984)". Film.com. Eric's Bad Movies. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
  25. TV Guide Staff. "The Initiation: Review". TV Guide. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
  26. Collins, Brian (November 8, 2016). "Pledge Your Allegiance to Slasher Oddity The Initiation". Birth.Movies.Death. Archived from the original on October 18, 2020.
  27. Arrigo, Anthony (November 2016). "Initiation, The (Blu-ray)". Dread Central. Archived from the original on October 18, 2020.
  28. Harper 2004, p. 116.
  29. Rockoff 2002, pp. 148–149.
  30. "The Initiation (Midnight Madness Series)". Amazon. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
  31. Anderson, Derek (August 12, 2016). "Arrow Video's November Blu-ray Releases to Include C.H.U.D., THE INITIATION, THE DRILLER KILLER". The Daily Dead. Retrieved September 4, 2016.
  32. "Initiation, The (Special Edition) [Blu-ray]". Amazon. Retrieved September 1, 2016.

Sources
  • Stine, Scott Aaron (2003). The Gorehound's Guide to Splatter Films of the 1980s. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-1-476-61132-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Harper, Jim (2004). Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies. Manchester: Critical Vision. ISBN 978-1900486392. OCLC 805288440.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Muir, John Kenneth (2012). Horror Films of the 1980s. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-47298-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Rockoff, Adam (2002). Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978–1986. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-49192-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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