Tag: prank

The Initiation (1984)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Initiations to a sorority crop up relatively frequently in horror, especially in the 80’s. This one goes straight for the obvious with the title “The Initiation”. The movie is mostly directed by Larry Stewart. The original director, Peter Crane was fired a few days into filming but some of his footage remains. Charles Pratt Jr. provides the script. The movie stars a young Daphne Zuniga as “Kelly Fairchild” one of the aspiring pledges for a sorority. Daphne would most famously appear in “Spaceballs”: The Movie” (1987)” as “Princess Vespa”.As is usually the case for this kind of horror, the head of the sorority has a grudge against our lead and so wants to make their initiation especially unpleasant.

Kelly has plenty of her own issues however since she is plagued by a recurring nightmare. In the nightmare she stabs her father with a knife and then a man is set on fire in front of her. She decides to investigate this with the help of an older student, “Peter” (James Read) that is working on his PhD and is specializing in the study of dreams. The answer to the puzzle seems to be related to a series of murders that has started to happen around town, apparently at the hands of a partially burned man. All threads will link up as the pledges attempt their initiation in the department store.

Sorority Slaughter Shenanigans

Despite the title, the story doesn’t really revolve around the initiation until the final act. It’s a bit like “Jason Takes Manhattan” in that regard. It’s also worth noting the initiation plot is virtually the same as in “One Dark Night”, only intimidating for the girls. Here the setting is a department store and the pranksters trying to scare them are totally ineffective. Not that it matters when there is a psycho hanging out there as well and that’s where the two stories diverge. It’s similar setup but very different movies. The focus is really more on Kelly and her dark past, along with building to a big twist. The twist here while somewhat predictable isn’t embarrassingly so. So it does work.

One thing this has over One Dark Night is that these characters are a little more varied and relatable. That’s not to say they are particularly deep. Instead they are very much college kid stereotypes, but there is enough there to actually care when they die. The acting quality however varies a lot across the board. Daphne Zuniga is the stand out and it’s no surprise she found her way on to Mel Brooks radar for Spaceballs. Her performance is great as the lead and also (spoilers) in her second role. Most of the main cast are passable too, but as you reach the smaller roles the quality drops off. Notably Peter’s colleague in the dream clinic Heidi has a few lines that really dropped me out of the movie.

Conclusion

Overall, I found this a pretty reasonable horror. It is generally fun, with a touch of that college kid comedy humour in places (Porky’s, American Pie, etc). The kills are relatively creative, the characters aren’t horrible and there is a proper story to it. There’s nothing exception here though, so it doesn’t warrant a high score. The movie lands a 5.5/10, held back from a six by those spots of bad acting. Still worth checking out though, especially if you like seeing frat boys/girls killed in slashers films.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

One Dark Night (1982)

Posted on by fenrisfil

“One Dark Night” was the directorial debut of Tom McLoughlin. The director is perhaps most famous for providing one of the best Jason Voorheese movies, “Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives” (1986). The screenplay was put together by McLoughlin and Michael Hawes. The pair had been trying to sell the script for about four years before they found a group of investors will to put up one million dollars for the film providing they start filming within three weeks.

The movie stars Meg Tilly as “Julie” a young girl determined to prove herself above a group of college mean girls by passing their initiation into their club called “The Sisters”. The club is led by “Carol” (Robin Evans) who holds a grudge against Julie since she is now going out with Carol’s ex boyfriend Steve (David Mason Daniels). Carol tasks Julie with spending a night in a mausoleum, but intends to make be make it as uncomfortable as possible for her. Unfortunately for the girls the mausoleum currently houses occultist Karl Raymarseivich Raymar, rumoured to be a psychic vampire with the powers of telekinesis. The only person aware of the danger they are in is Raymar’s daughter Olivia (Melissa Newman), but can she save them?

Pranks and Perils

As with a lot of horrors of the early 80’s, this is actually fairly slow to start. Things don’t actually kick off until the last 30 minutes and the rest of the film is pure set up. This is an approach that can work very well and can certainly cover for a lower effects budget, but it does ask more from the actors and script to make it work. If you are killing teenagers in the first ten minutes you have your entertainment factor. If you aren’t getting dirty until the final act you need to keep the audience entertained via other means. One Dark Night takes a two pronged approach to this. We have a story with college teenagers playing cruel pranks and walking blindly into the hands of the movies antagonist. But we also have Olivia, the antagonists estranged daughter learning via audiotape just what her father was capable of.

First thing I have to say here is I quite like exposition via audio tape in a horror. It works and doesn’t feel as awkward as having a character turn up mid way through to do a big exposition dump. Indeed, because it’s one sided and not a conversation it cuts the time needed for exposition right down. Of course you can’t do that in every film, but it works here. This exposition is spread out a bit as we see the events develop with the rest of the cast. The plot design here is pretty solid, the only downside is none of these characters are interesting. The antagonist, Raymar, is silent and sort of dead. The generic final girl is basically useless, her boyfriend is brave but also useless and her bullies are generic bullies. Well outside of one girls weird thing with her comfort toothbrush.

The Final Act

When it comes to events kicking off in the final act we have a lot of zombie like creatures, but because they are animated via telekinesis instead of being actual zombies they just sort of float into people instead of attacking them. Raymar is mostly motionless but occasionally fires out bolts of electricity at people. Ultimately it’s kind of goofy. But it is a pretty original idea. I’m not sure I’ve seen zombies created through telekinesis before. Maybe skeletons, but not flesh covered zombies. It occurs to me that saving these zombies until the final act was probably a good idea. The long build up and relatively brief time they are around for means they just about get away with it. Only narrowly though.

Ultimately this a pretty average 80’s horror with some interesting ideas that don’t quite work out in practice. The zombies look pretty good even if they move in a goofy way. Adam West feels wasted. The characters are generic, but the plot itself is fairly solid. A mixed bad that averages out to a 5.5/10. If you are a fan of 80’s horror it’s worth checking out, if not skip it!

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.