10/20/17 – day twenty of thirty-one days of horror!
Until recently, I had not been initiated to Larry Stewart’s
odd little 1984 gem The Initiated, but now that I have been initiated my life
will never be the same. On the surface The Initiation looks like your standard
sorority house being stalked by a killer fare, and while it does satisfy that
particular genre itch, this movie is way stranger than that, its plot
constantly veering into unpredictable directions and odd story cul-de-sacs. Daphne
Zuninga, one role away from her breakout in Spaceballs, plays a sorority sister
whose strange nightmares are the subject of a highly inappropriate on-campus study
and may connect her to the campus killer, who seems to be targeting her and her
fellow pledges. Thanks to her wealthy father (character great Clu Gulager,
partnered with onscreen wife Vera Miles), the sorority is able to gain access
to a massive department store, where they settle in for a long night of being stalked
and murdered, leading to a shocking double-twist ending that even had my jaded
brain fooled. If you like your sorority houses dripping with blood and have somehow
haven’t been initiated, it’s high time you treated yourself to the Initiation!
