LasKeepsItReal This is my review for the film The Intiation and it shall have several spoilers throughout.The film begins at a house with a group of sorority sisters. Some of the students at college are pledging to become sorority sisters with the sisterhood being lead by Megan we have Kelly,Alison,Beth and Marcia who will have to take part in an initiation before they become part of the group. The are allowed to have a few more days of fun before they are given their initiation.Meanwhile Kelly has been having repetitive nightmares for years about a young girl who enters a room to her parents and witnesses a confrontation between them and a man who is set alight on fire. She tells one of her tutors about this who along with another one of his students gives her some therapy and tries to get her to understand and piece together the meaning of her dreams.At the beginning of the following week Kelly,Alison,Beth and Marcia are due to carry out their initiation which is being given by Megan to break into Kelly's fathers department store and steal a specific item to be used as a souvenir within a time period. Beth gets into an argument with Megan and is eliminated from being part of the sisterhood.The girls go to the department store to fulfill their pledge whilst Megan and a couple of her friends sneak into the store with the intent on making things more difficult for them all. The students are all oblivious to the fact that on the same night a mental patient from a psychiatric ward has escaped with murder on their mind.I enjoyed The Initiation because even though it began with a familiar scenario like that of many of 1980's films in a house and with a sisterhood of some girls what were not a part of wanted to do things in order to be inclusive i like the fact that many of the films scenes were located in a department store which proved to be effective for the suspense and chase scenes. The film also worked as a thriller that was not a simple and straight forward as some others when predicting the plot. I also thought several of the characters were likable from Hunter Tylo's portrayal of Alison who was fun,entertaining and at times naughty to Vera Miles who plays Frances the mother of Kelly that harbors a dark secret to Marilyn Kagen who plays Marcia who was sweet and probably the most mature out of the girls and the way she tells her friends a story about her past even had me a little shocked which added a more serious tone to her character. Daphne Zuniga as Kelly played a worthy and dynamic performance too! The films production values, special effects and music were also professional for a horror film of 1984.I would rate this film 6 out of 10.

jet66 An undemanding 80's slasher, The Initiation features plenty of mediocre acting, clumsy and unintentionally hilarious violence, and gratuitous, pulchritudinous shower nudity. Despite several red-herrings tossed in, and a lame twist at the end, the mystery central to the plot is not terribly cryptic, with the story arc telegraphed within the first 30 minutes or so. Daphne Zuniga's range blossoms from horrible to passable, while Deborah Morehart shows as almost as much verisimilitude as nipple. Through extremely limited screen time, Clu Gulager and Vera Miles give this movie undeserved credibility. Never straying from the patented formula for blood-drenched success, The Initiation would definitely be at home as a DVD wedged under an unbalanced table leg, if not stuffed into a slasher-completist's collection of Greek organization serial killer movies.

Toronto85 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

ryannemetz The Initation is a product of good old 80's slasher formula. Just by the title you are probably assuming that this deals with a sorority pledge, which it does. Daphene (Melrose Place) Zuniga, who plays Kelly Fairchild is tormented from childhood nightmare memories. However, Kelly is now in college and she wants to join a sorority group. The initiation prank involves spending the night inside of an empty mall. While the college kids are trapped inside of the mall, they begin to get killed off as the night progresses. This movie moves along well. I especially like the fact that it's set inside of a mall. Other successes which are set inside of a mall include Jim Wynorski's "Chopping Mall," "Dawn of the Dead" and "Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge." I don't know exactly what it is, but I enjoy that setting for a horror film. I also appreciate the acting capabilities of one Clu (Return of the Living Dead) Gulager. This guy is an awesome actor, no matter what role he is faced with. It also has some good fatalities in it. Check out the one with the arrow, it was right on point:) "The Initiation" is very comparable to such films as "Slumber Party Massacre," "House on Sorority Row" and "Scream" As one who frequently watches horror movies, I do recommend this one!