Eric Stevenson While not as bad as Part 2, this was still awful. It's mostly because of how utterly ridiculous it is. This movie features a woman on fire jumping off a building and another woman investigating her death. It turns out the woman was a member of a cult that worshipped giant larvae (!) and she failed to go through initiation. Now only does this movie have virtually nothing to do with the previous movies, but it has virtually nothing to do with Christmas at all! Couldn't these guys have at least kept that consistent? There's a few Christmas trees and presents here and there and a Christmas party, but that's it! The woman is plagued by insects all around her house. I do know what that's like unfortunately. There are several giant insects that appear throughout the movie and it looks absolutely stupid. I think this woman is actually supposed to give birth to a giant bug at one point. This film is really disgusting and has nothing to do with anything. There's just so many random things going on it's hard to put any plot together. It looks like they just took random elements and objects and made a movie out of them. This is just pointless. *

Coventry Yours truly has a dumb but very punctual tradition to watch at least one holiday-themed horror movie during the Christmas period. After all these years, however, I'm running out of options and pretty much the only Christmas horror movies that I haven't seen yet are the more obscure sequels in the "Silent Night, Deadly Night" franchise. I couldn't get my filthy claws on part III, so I went straight to Brian Yuzna's fourth installment which has absolutely nothing to do with the original 1984 classic and actually hardly even qualifies as a Christmas movie. Apart from a couple of decorated trees left and right and one lousy strangulation with a cord of colorful lights, this "Initiation" has as much to see with Christmas as "Die Hard" has to see with the 4th of July… So, instead of a slasher with a psychopathic Santa Clause, we have a gooey splatter flick with a coven of female witches aiming to resurrect a demon by the name of Lilith. The over-ambitious Los Angeles journalist Kim is individually – and against the will of her superiors – investigating the bizarre suicide of a girl who jumped from a rooftop whilst on fire. She receives a lot of help from the kind and motherly occult book store owner Fima, but before she properly realizes what's happening, Kim is hallucinating about satanic symbols in her spaghetti and vomiting out cockroaches in her cockroach-infested little apartment. "SN,DN: Initiation" actually feels somewhat as if co- creator and director Brian Yuzna couldn't stuff all his crazy figments in his previous film "Society" and thus especially thought up another senseless plot. This way, he could also prolong his collaboration with the awesome special effects wizard Screaming Mad George and stuff the script – like a Christmas turkey – with perversities, filth and bugs. The film is definitely watchable, but a bit too random and imbecilic. Classy woman and two-time James Bond starlet ("The Man with the Golden Gun", "Octopussy") depicts one of the lead witches and surprisingly enough seems to enjoy herself as well. Cult actor Clint Howard appears as the men-hating witches' marginal errand boy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to look for an actual Christmas horror movie!

mkay-549-110495 The second in a trio of Brian Yuzna-directed early-90s sequels to 80s horror classics, this one stands out - as particularly uninspired. Bride of Re-Animator was a decent direct sequel, continuing the story where it ended in Re-Animator, while Return of the Living Dead III surprisingly re-animated a left-for-dead franchise with a new story bearing only some connections to the original (and missing its humor). Both of them were B-movies, sure, but they had good ideas, the weird make-up effects that Society, Yuzna's freaky debut, made him known for, and lots of B-charm of their own. Why Yuzna even bothered with the trite SNDN series I don't know - probably it started with a late-night call like this: " Well, that last Silent Night Deadly Night movie did OK, so if you have anything which we could somehow distribute under that franchise, we'll do it." The only thing that connects this one to the others is the character of Ricky (this time it's the great Clint Howard in one of his lamest performances) who's shot-to-goo brain has healed remarkably well in just one year. Well, the bum he plays may as well be named Ron or Gerald - and probably was before they tried to make some unnecessary connection with the SNDN series. The story is uninteresting from the start, the acting is bland (the unknown Neith Hunter probably got the lead because she was willing to do the slime-trenched nude scenes) and yes, there's Yuzna's trademark scenes involving Screaming Mad George's body melt effects which are fun as always, but they are few and short, hardly worth the wait. As there's hardly any Christmas connections either, this one doesn't even qualify for a Trashmas video night in the holidays.

blueknight7 None of the Silent Night: Deadly Night films will ever win an Academy Award, but at least you don't feel cheated out of a couple of hours of your life watching them. This one is absolutely awful!!! It shouldn't even be allowed to carry the Silent Night/Deadly Night title.It has nothing at all to do with the Christmas killer theme of the others & is sorely lacking any interesting storyline here. Nothing but a bunch of has been or never were actors from the 70's and wannabe actors from the 90's in this one. The script is awful, the acting's even worse & the special effects are lame & rely on slimy reptiles & cockroaches in the sink to get bang for the buck.If you get a chance try & book some time watching paint dry instead of watching this garbage.