The Initiation Blu-ray+DVD

This eternally perky plasma-soaked 80s slasher initially concerns the pledge-pranking purgatory of pristine-looking preppy-go-lucky Kelly Fairchild (Daphne Zuniga) fated to endure the event-packed hysteria, teen-aged travails of hell week wherein she falls in love with her dreamy-looking, dream researching beau Peter (James Read) who attempts to discover the long-suppressed origins of her aggressively reoccurring nightmare, wherein the much younger Kelly repeatedly witnesses the Vaseline-lensed, intimate nocturnal congress of her mother with some elusive, nightmare-invoking stranger which disturbingly culminates in an chaos-inducing fireside conflagration! Nightly plagued with such fulminating inner turmoil, blithely unaware that there has also been a frenzied, blood-soaked breakout in a dramatically pertinent mental facility, plucky brunette Kelly and her two lissome fraternity initiates Alison (Hunter Tylo) and Marcia (Marilyn Kagan) surreptitiously enter her adulterous father's (Clu Gulager) cavernous department store ostensibly to avail themselves of the item requested by the disagreeable, odious-minded Pledge Trainer of Delta Rho Chi Megan (Frances Peterson) proving to be merely the stolid, meat n' potatoes entrée to director Larry Stewart's fairly archetypal teen terroriser. While 'The Initiation' rarely veers from the universally accepted slasher sequence of unseen sicko, unseemly slashing extremely screamly teens with steely severity, yet somehow, even without the element of surprise, his trifling, infrequently thrilling, modestly-skilled blood-spiller is a pretty fair time-killer! While there's nothing particularly exceptional in 'The Initiation', since the formulaic, trope-sodden text is rather lightweight, lacking depth or spontaneity, and the film's technical aspects while professionally executed are rarely more than adequate, the worthier aspects of the production are the sporadically zesty portrayals by a clearly game, excitable young cast, while somewhat contrastingly screen veterans Clu Gulager and Vera Miles playing their thanklessly stale characters with all the somnolence of prosaic daytime soap actors. In spite of this dearth of originality, this is perhaps one of the very rare instances when the collectively mediocre ingredients of a white bread 80s horror flick thankfully coalesces into an inexplicably entertaining, generously cheese-laden portion of drive-thru slice n' dice righteousness! The film's weird watchability increased a hundredfold by the deliciously thicc security guard's rakishly pencil-thin moustache!