Sadly Over-hyped

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The premise is promising for a slasher, but this film is a bore.

This 1984 horror film stars Daphne Zuniga, Vera Miles, James Read, Hunter Tylo and Clu Gulager. Zuniga (Spaceballs) plays Kelly, a college student who is having bad dreams about an incident that occurred when she was a kid. She seeks help from professor, Peter (Read) to interpret what the dreams mean. She is also pledging a sorority and in order to get in, she and her friends must break into her father's department store where a mysterious killer stalks them. Miles (Psycho & Psycho II) plays Kelly's mother, Frances, Gulager (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, Return of the Living Dead) plays her father, Dwight and Tylo (The Bold and the Beautiful) plays her friend, Alison. This isn't a bad 80's slasher flick with a decent cast & chilling score. If you're a fan of the genre, you may want to check it out.

Kelly has horrible nightmares with mirrors and burning men - but her days aren't much easier since she has to deal with Delta Rho Chi sister Megan, who's trying to make pledge Kelly's life hell. Megan decides the pledges' initiation prank will be to sneak into Kelly's dad's store and steal the security guard's uniform. Meanwhile, Kelly starts letting a hunky grad student analyze her dreams. Oh, and there's a big multiple-inmate escape at the insane asylum. These three threads come together on one blood-soaked night.I remember watching The Initiation years ago, but I always get it mixed up with 2 or 3 other similar films from that time. Being able give it my complete attention, I found that I really enjoyed it. The Initiation has everything I look for in an 80s slasher and the characters are actually pretty likable. I can really only think of two problems with it - there's not a lot of gore (even though there's a decent body count) and there's a really stupid out-of-left-field twist at the end. It's not as terrible as the Happy Birthday to Me twist, but it's still goofy. I'm happy that I was able to revisit this one, and you might enjoy it if you enjoy 80s slashers too.

The Initiation is definitely one of the better 80's horror films. A sorority pledge named Kelly Fairchild is have a recurring dream that holds the key to something traumatic from her childhood. She tells her college professor about it and he starts digging into the family secret surrounding the dream. All of this is going on while the sorority she is in is planning an initiation for Kelly and some of her friends. They have to spend the night in a mall which Kelly's family owns. They end up getting locked in the dark mall with a killer running around knocking many of them off one by one. There is a very neat twist with the killer's identity which leads into those recurring dreams Kelly was having.The cast is pretty good. Vera Miles and Clu Gulager are no strangers to the horror genre. Miles was in Psycho 1 and 2, and Gulager was in A Nightmare on Elm St 2. Daphne Zuniga does good in the lead, and Hunter Tylo (famous from the Bold and the Beautiful) does a good job as well. The setting of the dark spooky mall after hours is very well done. Elevator doors opening, a killer lurking in almost every shadow, and the overall effect of being in a dark mall overnight is just creepy. 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. The acting is pretty good and there is a creepiness about the whole being trapped in a mall with a killer on the loose. Definitely check this out if you like horror, especially 80's horror movies.8/10