The Initiation (1984) *

I'll be adding additional thoughts in the next blog post. Since this film isn't highly favored by those who frequent and write on the IMDb, my own user comments from March 2007 will be taken off there and put here due to low helpful ratio. I think it could be my rating which was 7/10 at the time. So this is my freshest viewing of the slasher flick in thirteen years.
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The lovely Kelly(Daphne Zuniga in her first lead performance)is troubled by this recurring "nightmare" regarding her mother and "father" making love when a man enters the room enraged. A little girl, she believes is herself, has a bloody knife in her hand. A mirror reflecting the little girl and the enraged man being burnt alive by the "father" also are very potent images in this nightmare. Later we see that a facially burnt man is attending to the grounds at an insane asylum about the same time as patients are released from the place and a nurse is brutally stabbed while attempting to crank her car.

Kelly and two other college girls, Marcia(Marilyn Kagan)and Alison(Hunter Tylo, better known for starring on the soap opera THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL)are challenged, via pledge, by sorority sister Megan(Frances Peterson)to steal a security uniform from her "father" Dwight Fairchild's massive mall. Megan plans to prank the girls and keeps the back door locked when Kelly hands over the keys to the building. Megan also invites three college boys:Ralph the comedian(Trey Stroud), Chad(Christopher Bradley) & Andy(Peter Malof), Megan's beau. What none of these characters know is that a psycho is inside the mall with them as we see this person kill the security guard before the girls entered the place.

Kelly seeks help from teaching assistant, Peter(hunky James Read), whose special interests and skills lie in understanding the logic of dreams. He hopes to unlock those mysteries and expose them to Kelly so they will quit plaguing her.

Film vets Clu Gulager and Vera Miles get top billing as Kelly's parents. The facially burnt man named Jason Randall(Robert Dowdell)has a major role in the grand scheme of things as does the nightmare and it's mysteries on how they effect Kelly. The twist is neat and the characters(my favorite is Tylo who uses her Southern drawl and charm as the beautiful nympho Alison)are likable. The various slayings come mostly from weapons stolen within the mall which creates a foreboding atmosphere all it's own when the killer continues every now and then to turn the lights on and off. The mall is also a really expansive place where a killer can hide fairly well.
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