Natal Sangrento 4: A Iniciação

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.

A young reporter investigating a bizarre death becomes involved with a coven of modern day witches headed by Maud Adams. Good script and effects, but by the numbers acting and direction almost destroy it. Maud Adams outclasses the whole production. Rated R; Adult Themes, Sexual Situations, Nudity, Violence, and Profanity.

"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.

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.

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.