Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation (1990)

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. *

Fmovies: After the deadly dull third film producer / director Brain Yunza would ambitiously steer away from the psycho Santa formula (no more Billy, Ricky or mother superior) of the first three "Silent Night, Deadly Night" outings, for something unrelated and could have easily stood alone by just sticking to the title "Initiation". Maybe then it would have gained a better reputation. Anyhow what's done is done. "Initiation: "Silent Night, Deadly Night 4" is an atypically strange holiday shocker, which delves into witchcraft, the occult and nasty looking bugs. The story centres on a bunch of female characters (an almost feminist stance streams through the material) led by the likes of an outstanding Maud Adams and Neith Hunter as the feisty newspaper reporter heroine, but the scene stealer is support actor Clint Howard who's dementedly humorous with his offbeat character. Director Yunza competent handling makes the most of the leering low-budget, establishing surprising dynamics (an edgy music score and getting some crudely nauseating and graphically surreal rubber make-up effects crafted by Screaming Mad George. There's quite an nightmarish atmosphereÂ… where the premise plays out like some sort of lingering bad dream with its constant off-the-wall images (the ritual sequences take the cake), alarmingly unpleasant streak and spaced-out characters finding its way into the investigative plot-structure. While immensely slow-burn, it did at times get frustrating with its stop and go rhythm amongst its ambiguously eerie plotting. Sometimes it had me captivated, while other instances my interest fadedÂ… but it builds up a rush of energy for its bewilderingly suspenseful climax. Other then the bumpy story it's a well-made, low-grade shocker.

Trying to investigate an apparent suicide, a reporter is drawn into a strange cult-like collection of women looking to host their demonic leader and tries to find a way of keeping a dangerous prophecy from coming true.

This was a slightly-more enjoyable sequel effort that still has some problems with it. One of its better qualities is the fact that there's a lot more here than just a simple demonic cult offering as there's a wholly enjoyable backstory to what's going on here. The initial story about the suicide attempt and the strange situations that surround it are quite engaging, which is nicely matched by the later storyline of her investigation slowly leading her further and further into their powers which enable plenty of exciting times through some highly effective and shocking scenes. As these are based on the distorted and demented hallucinations that are part of the Insectoid fantasies she develops throughout the second half, these help get the film going along quite nicely while also managing to follow along the secondary revelations in here. The whole deal with the insects leads into the film's greatest strength throughout here in the demented atmosphere present here that tends to run rampant quite readily due to these elements, though it never does manage to overcome its few small problems due to that. The main issue here revolves around the finale which is quite a bit overdone and really lacking in any kind of coherent logic, rationality or even scary moments as the abduction and resulting sacrificial ceremony doesn't play out as expected and just falls incredibly flat due to playing out exactly as it's expected to do without fail. Hardly any of it makes any impact much like the fact that the film is so dependent on the weird and otherworldly visuals that it never makes sense on how to properly use them. This one tends to run around thinking that it needs to simply throw weird and slimy special effects around hoping that will cause the audience to squirm when it does nothing of the sort and instead simply continues an overlong tradition of random scene of slimy bugs after another which isn't scary in the slightest. By making it to that scenario, it forces the film into a state of relaxed attitudes and uninspired sequences that are hard to get into and what ultimately holds this one down.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity, a sex scene and children-in-jeopardy.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation fmovies. The fourth entry in the mostly terrible Silent Night, Deadly Night series tries to move away from the killer Santa shtick. The story this time is about a female reporter who investigates a girl's suspicious death and becomes involved with a group of witches. Clint Howard's in it and hammy as usual. I'm not always a fan of his but many are, particularly those who were weened on straight-to-video '90s trash like this. Neith Hunter (who?) is the female lead. She's certainly pretty and shows some skin but does nothing else to leave an impression. The best part of the cast is former Bond girl Maud Adams as a lezzy witch. It's directed by Brian Yuzna, who has done more fun and creative horror films than this. There's a bit of the gross-out stuff you expect from his movies. There's also some on-the-nose messaging going on about sexism and feminism or something. But it doesn't amount to anything and seems to be the kind of business writers throw in to make themselves feel less like hacks when they're churning out Z-grade material. If you're a fan of the Silent Night, Deadly Night series -- you have my sympathies for your lack of taste. Just kidding. Sort of. Anyway, this isn't the worst of the lot but if you're really hoping for some guy in a Santa suit stabbing people then you'll hate this.

At least for this entry in this seasonal horror series things are taken in an awfully wild new direction. Gone is the tastelessness and dark humour of the first movie, the camp quality of the silly second movie, and the surreal nature of the third. For entry # 4, screenwriter Woody Keith and director Brian Yuzna go for utter strangeness - as well as the gross-out - in their story. An ambitious, stubborn wannabe reporter, Kim (pretty Neith Hunter) determines that she'll solve the mystery of a young woman's bizarre suicide - which may have involved spontaneous human combustion, treating her boyfriend Hank (Tommy Hinkley) like crap in the process. And therein lies one of the problems with "Initiation": its protagonist is so surly, with such a big chip on her shoulder, that she's very hard to follow as a main character, and while attractive, Hunter isn't much of an actress, so it's up to the story and supporting characters to keep things interesting. Among all the trappings are a barrage of insects, maggots, and the ghoulishly fun "surrealistic" makeup effects of the great Screaming Mad George, who'd done such memorable work on "Society", Yuzna's directing debut. To top it all off, the supporting cast includes one of the big screen's all time great creators of oddness and creepiness, Mr. Clint Howard, who's a hoot every time he pops up on screen. In something of a nod to past entries, he plays a man named Ricky. The amusing selection of actors also includes Allyce Beasley of 'Moonlighting' fame as Kim's friend Janice, lovely Bond girl Maud Adams as the alluring and enigmatic Fima, Ben Slack, the psychiatrist in "Society", as Hank's prejudiced dad, Yuzna's own son Conan as Hank's kid brother Lonnie, and "Phantasm" series star Reggie Bannister in a highly entertaining turn as Kim and Hank's boss at the newspaper. Things get off to a pretty good start with those stylized opening credits, and Richard Band's music is another plus. What's truly ridiculous is how the makers of these movies seem always obliged to include any sort of archive footage, as scenes from SNDN 3, "Better Watch Out" play out on a TV screen. Also, the story here has little to do with the holiday; it merely happens to take place at Christmastime. It's entertainingly bonkers stuff, that admittedly one could view as being anti-feminist. But if all of this still intrigues the potential viewer, and they're happy to not see a single killer Santa in sight, they might want to check this out. Six out of 10.

Hopefully they don't stop at 4. Maybe at least another 5 or 6.