Review of Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 (1990) by Ttt C — 19 Jan 2010

Try to wrap your brain around this next entry in the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise: A young, sexy reporter (Neith Hunter), living in a superb age of male chauvinism and sexism, takes on the task of investigating a strange death involving a woman spontaneously combusting on a rooftop and falling off to her death.

To make matters much, much stranger, she encounters an eerie group of women (led by Maud Adams) who may or may not be part of an evil sect looking to resurrect an Egyptian she-devil. Let's not forget their disgusting, little errand boy in the form of Clint Howard, whose very presence in this movie is deliciously comical, as are the array of Screaming Mad George special effects, which consist of some fairly disturbing bugs and body mutilation.

The film was directed by the once great Brian Yuzna, who had a knack for directing some fun, gory, effects-filled horror movies between 1989 and 1998 before fleeing to Spain and making one god awful film after the next.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation takes the franchise in a VERY different and disturbing path that definitely has Yuzna's touch to it. Be on the lookout for the great Reggie Bannister (Phantasm franchise) as Hunter's boss.

The film was a fun watch for me, but its definitely an acquired taste for certain people, specifically Yuzna fans of gorehounds. While Hunter does have a small titillating love scene, she still manages to keep relatively covered up (sorry folks, you'll have to seek out some of her other nudity-filled films).

Overall, though, not a bad early 90's vehicle. I think the better thing to have been done was to just give the film a different name (like it's Initiation subtitle) rather than lopping it in with a franchise and not linking it whatsoever save for it happening around Christmas and for part 3 to be playing on a random TV.

Weird, but an interesting watch nonetheless.