Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4

This film begins with a young woman being engulfed in flames and falling to her death from a tall building. Recognizing a story when she sees one, an aspiring female reporter named "Kim Levitt" (Neith Hunter) asks the newspaper's editor "Eli" (Reggie Bannister) for the opportunity to cover it. Since he doesn't take her very seriously, he refuses her requests and gives the assignment to Kim's boyfriend "Hank" (Tommy Hinkley) instead. Furious with this decision, Kim decides to cover the story anyway. To that effect, one of the first people she interviews is a woman named "Fima" (Maud Adams) who runs a bookstore in that area and lives in the same building where the woman fell to her death. Yet even though Fima appears to be very helpful at first, it soon becomes clear that she is involved in a strange religious cult--and Kim just happens to be at the center of something extremely dangerous. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film has absolutely no relation to any of its three predecessors. And considering that the last two weren't that remarkable, then perhaps that's a good thing. Having said that, although I thought this effort was definitely a step in the right direction, I believe that the decision to rely more heavily upon special effects rather than suspense hurt the overall experience to some degree. Now, that's not to say that this was a terribly bad film by any means--it's just that these special effects weren't nearly as capable at delivering the necessary horror all by themselves. At least, I didn't think so. In any case, while I don't consider this to be a bad film by any means, I wasn't overly impressed with it, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

This movie feels more like a sequel to Rosemary's Baby. For whatever reason they called it a Silent Night, Deadly Night sequel, and had it set at Christmas time. Just like Pt. 3, it's Christmas in L.A., so now snow on the ground.

Clint Howard's character is named Ricky, which has to be more than just a coincidence. But I can't see how this Ricky can be tied to the Ricky in Pt.2 and 3.

Screaming Mad George still has the cochroach puppets left over from Nightmare On Elm Street 4.

It's good to see Reggie Banister in a movie not directed by Don Coscorelli.

A female reporter investigates the death of a woman who, on fire, leapt off of a building to her death. Her investigation leads her to discover the existence of a strange cult dedicated Egyptian god Isis--and the cult wants her as its new queen. While the plot is virtually unrelated to the first 3 films, SNDN4 is a surprisingly effective gross-out thriller. There are a few scares and gruesome moments here and there and the visual effects are terrific and, as we've come to expect from Screaming mad George, different. Both The script and acting are unimaginative but it's good horror fun from the Yuzna team that we've all come to love and it makes a great holiday family......err, horror film. My rating for "Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation"-8/10.

"Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 4: Intiation" is one strange movie. In fact, I don't think I've seen anything quite like it before. And I've seen a lot of films. It is about a Los Angeles journalist who is investigating a woman's death around Christmastime. The woman spontaneously combusted and leaped from the top of a building downtown. While asking the owner of a bookstore (Maude Adams) within the building about the strange death, she is lead into a sacrificial cult of modern day witches that plan on using her for one of their sacrificial ceremonies on Christmas Eve.

Take elements from "Rosemary's Baby" and throw in some nasty monster creatures and feminist witches in a Christmas setting, and you've got this movie. I swear, this movie is one of the weirdest movies I think I've seen. There are a lot of strange bugs and creatures throughout the film that are really disgusting. Bizarre events and sequences take place throughout the movie. This film has pretty decent acting, Maude Adams is the best of the cast as the head of the cult, and the special effects are pretty cheap but sufficient. Since it's Los Angeles and there's no snow, the Christmastime mood isn't really set here, but the film didn't really have anything to do the Christmas anyway. And the sequence where Ricky attacks Kim and her boyfriend in the apartment was pretty well-done.

This is the only "Silent Night, Deadly Night" film that I've seen so far, but still I'd probably only recommend this to hardcore fans of the "Silent Night, Deadly Night" series, and from what I know this sequel is unrelated to the other films. It's entertaining and has some good moments, but it's a little far out there. I liked it though, oddly enough. 6/10.

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.