Studio: Saban Films
Director: John Berardo
Writer: John Berardo, Lindsay LaVanchy, Brian Frager
Producer: Brian Frager, John Berardo, J.P. Castel, Lindsay LaVanchy, Stephanie Stanziano, Jon Huertas
Stars: Jon Huertas, Isabella Gomez, Lindsay LaVanchy, Froy Gutierrez, Gattlin Griffith, Patrick Walker, Bart Johnson, Yancy Butler, Lochlyn Munro
Review Score:
Summary:
A frat house murder kicks off a whodunit mystery connected to a criminal cover-up at a prestigious university.
Review:
“Initiation” reminds me why we’re told to not judge a book by its cover. If I had, I wouldn’t have pressed Play on this film to begin with.
“Initiation,” which was previously titled “Dembanger,” was already reductively referred to as a “social media slasher.” To me, those words signal shorthand for “teen-targeted tedium trying too hard to be trendy.” And no one needs another cookie-cutter horror movie where obnoxious Instagram personalities pucker their pouts for selfies, boozily shout after swigging from Solo cups, and speak in millennial slang like they’re blue dwarves replacing regular words with “smurf.”
Yet the movie was slated to debut at SXSW before it was cancelled in 2020 and played later that year at Screamfest. Those are two of the top genre film festivals, neither of which is known for programming fly-by-night indies destined for forgettable DTV dumps. There had to be something more to “Initiation” than the usual “masked maniac slaughters ‘bros and hos’ on a college campus” nonsense.
You don’t get the impression of more substance beneath the surface from the film’s first few minutes. “Initiation” opens on photogenic sorority sisters in tank tops and hard-bodied fraternity brothers with no tops having squirt gun fights while hazing pledges during a homecoming party. Several women repeatedly send each other off with a shrill “Bye-eeeee!” As if the predictably drunken interactions aren’t grating enough, “Initiation” overloads on graphic overlays mirroring all of the immature hashtags, handles, and texts occupying the phones everyone holds in their hands. This tactic usually screams, “We desperately want this film to look hip,” although seasoning the screen with these visuals keeps “Initiation” flowing even when exposition hits stagnating stalls.
Ellery is looking to leave the party, but has to collect Kylie first. Troublingly, Ellery finds her sorority sister passed out in a locked bedroom with frat buds Beau, Dylan, and Wes, the latter of whom is Ellery’s brother as well as the school’s star swimmer. Even though she keeps a suspicious eyebrow raised, Ellery believes her brother’s claim that nothing happened, until the next morning when Kylie reveals she may have been assaulted.
It’s clever how “Initiation” wears a deceptive overcoat of clichéd campus-set horror, yet sort of “tricks” you into watching what turns out to be a grounded college drama. Fair warning, a body doesn’t drop until the 30-minute mark. Up to that point, and for quite a while afterward, “Initiation” carries the occasional scent of a Lifetime MOW. Since I didn’t know specific plot details during that first half hour, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was even watching, but not in a way where I felt the movie’s direction was muddled. I was more intrigued by having no firm indication of what the full mystery even was. What were the frat brothers hiding? Could Kylie be setting up something? You know someone is going to die eventually, but “Initiation” floats a number of scenarios to keep multiple suspects, targets, and possibilities in play regarding what’s going on and why.
As with any premise involving a possible rape, “Initiation” gets somewhat heavy. The movie handles touchy material with a fair deal of tact though. Interpersonal interactions in particular are believably organic. Ellery and Wes have one confrontation that sounds like two true siblings engaging in a tough conversation as opposed to actors exchanging boilerplate lines written for an Afterschool Special.
These people turn out to be more than hollow jock, bitch, slut, jerk, and ditz stereotypes too. It’s necessary for a plot point, but Ellery trades in her short shorts for a lab coat when we see she’s an intelligent science student dedicated to DNA research. Outside of the opening party featuring horny hookups and vodka shots, everyone attends class, honors athletic commitments, and checks in on one another’s wellbeing. In other words, these are university attendees with actual ambitions, not empty pawns moving around robotically in a rape-revenge story.
They even deal with death realistically. When someone learns of a shocking murder, “Initiation” allows that person to go through several stages of grief in an emotional scene. An ordinary horror film would cut from a mutilated corpse to someone screaming and simply rush right on to the next setup.
Once the halfway point arrives, “Initiation” further sheds its slasher shell and solidifies into a procedural thriller. Taking on this identity comes with some growing pains. The main problem is the movie overpopulates its suspect stream with so many herrings, they turn blazingly red from a scorching sunburn caused by a solar flare of obviousness.
The second death doesn’t occur until one hour into the movie. Minutes in between murders get chewed up by scenes where people and pieces move nowhere in particular. Police question witnesses in snoozy sit-down interviews. Students puzzle over the case on phone calls with parents. An officer arranges a meeting between Ellery and a detective. A Student Affairs assistant also calls Ellery to schedule a meeting with the school’s chancellor, when it would be more efficient to start that scene with Ellery in his office and the chancellor saying, “Thanks for agreeing to meet me.” All of this rigmarole with extraneous characters and inessential chatter exists to feed the red herrings so there are multiple motivations and enough screen time for everyone to have equal weight. I respect the commitment to keeping a question mark over the mystery, although it doesn’t make for a consistently exciting tale.
The whodunit doesn’t completely work either, since the killer’s true identity slightly tampers with the audience’s clues. Even if you guess correctly, and odds are your first guess won’t be right, you won’t be able to guess the background behind the murderer’s reasoning.
Some streamlining to the story, let’s say cutting as much as 15-20 minutes, would boost a sometimes-saggy energy level when too many pages of padding are taken out of the “Law and Order: SVU” playbook. Even with those jagged hangnails, “Initiation” still gets a good deal of the way there as a prettily polished indie with several surprises up its sleeve. The film’s smooth style is easy on the eyes in more ways than one, with attractive SAG-AFTRA actors, professional color timing, licensed songs, large locations, tons of background extras, and little details like office nameplates keeping the production wide open and inviting. It sounds silly to say, but “Initiation” is a “real” movie, and not the sorry “social media slasher” it might look like on the outside.
Review Score: 65
How someone who sees this in a theater or without a notepad can keep everyone and their relationships straight, I have no idea.