The Initiate

Films like this infuriate me. Films which are thoroughly bad can be enjoyable in an "ironic" sense, but The Initiate is one of those films filled with promise, yet never delivers.

The premise is fascinating enough: A man in Southern Georgia dies in an accident and during the autopsy, tattoos indicating Freemasonry and/or Golden Dawn involvement are found on his body. The film then proceeds as a sort of mystery, but completely fizzles out. And I do mean completely. The film rapidly slows to a crawl to such an extent, I wouldn't be surprised if most who started watching this (I saw it on Netflix) abandoned it midway through.

Involving the Golden Dawn in a film plot and then going nowhere with it borders on cruelty.

But I have to say the problem with this film is almost entirely with the script. The film feels like it gets stuck in mud about 25 minutes in. From there it plods along, until it nearly stops. There is a shooting later in the film which is supposed to be the climax, but I was in such a bored stupor by then, it was impossible to involve myself in it or care.

What's excellent here is the use of light and shadow -- itself awkwardly highlighted as it contrasts uncomfortably with the script problems. The film looked better than it probably deserved to, and the low budget of the film actually added a kind of intimacy rather than cheapness. I wanted to see it succeed, because it had the potential to succeed in the way a big budget Hollywood production couldn't.

The soundtrack is also remarkable, and contrasts similarly. I almost wish the film had been completely ham-fisted; I could write it off completely as another relic in the enormous landfill of low budget films and wouldn't have bothered writing this comment.

I wanted to see more about the Golden Dawn. I wanted more character development, and I wanted a film with some complexity. Worse yet, the movie has no apparent ending. It seems to trail off in mid-sentence. There is no resolution of tension, no twist, nor even any kind of a cliffhanger. It almost feels like they ran out of money and just never finished.

So many individual aspects of the movie are so good that my temptation is to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt. So much effort was put into specific aspects of the film (the aforementioned look, for instance) that I have to believe something subverted the film's production before it could be finished properly.

Those who are fascinated by the films occult elements in particular will be supremely disappointed. There's a brief discussion of Crowley and the Golden Dawn, and a brief shot of one of the characters in some kind of altar setting, and that's it. What the occult has to do with what turns out to be about a mundane drug ring with bikers, I am not sure.

This film is older than I thought. The writer/director has no other IMDb credits. I would encourage the creators of this film to take another shot at film-making.

While The Initiate can only be categorized as a failure, it is an interesting one. I would certainly consider watching any further projects by the filmmakers.

This low-budget work, an ambitious mixture of mood and plotting by musician Chad Etchison, is set and shot in southern Georgia, relating of a rural community deputy sheriff, Jack Collins, who after being reinstated to his law enforcement assignment following a three month leave of absence spent in an Atlanta rehabilitation facility for alcohol addiction, soon finds himself dealing with the death of a long-time friend, Harlan, victim of an apparent job-related accident, although Jack believes that he was in reality murdered, and as he investigates the incident, dangerous complications arise for him. Etchison and his wife Mary play in featured roles and, along with cinematographer Jim Hunter, produce the film, effectively creating a sense of dread in a viewer through most of the first half, but unfortunately the narrative completely unravels and, unquestionably due to overly restricted financing, storyline elements are not advanced and a stylish tone established early on, largely due to Hunter's inventive visual compositions with camera and lighting, is dissipated into chaos. A love triangle, and the involvement of local acolytes of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in cocaine trafficking, are among several screenplay components that remain underdeveloped as the film abruptly concludes, failing to yield even that manner of satisfaction that comes from ambiguity, and since Etchison has asserted that director Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER is the principal inspiration here, it is hardly surprising that as the storyline becomes a puzzling farrago, the camera skills of Hunter become the cardinal virtue.