Silent Night Deadly Night 4: Initiation

1990 "If I die before I wake... thank you."
4.2| 1h27m| R| en| More Info
Released: 21 November 1990 Released
Producted By: Silent Films Inc.
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

A reporter investigating the bizarre death of a woman who leaped from a building in flames finds herself mixed up in a cult of witches who are making her part of their sacrificial ceremony during the Christmas season.

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Reviews

Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!
Steineded How sad is this?
Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good
AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Leofwine_draca This horror sequel, also known as SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 4, is another lame affair. It's completely unspectacular. I mean, I watched it only a couple of hours ago and I can hardly remember what happened even now.The plot is confusing, deliberately so, and never seems to go anywhere. When the woman is in the ritual, absolutely nothing makes sense, and the momentum is completely lost. Parts of the film are ripped from ROSEMARY'S BABY, but to compare the two would be an outrage. BUGS is also extremely low budget, almost on a par with a home movie, which detracts from the appeal a lot. The acting is uniformly bad and unremarkable, with only the reliable Clint Howard on hand playing a repulsive geek who sticks in the mind. Apart from him, the others are dreadful with the female lead just stripping off instead of acting. Maud Adams turns up but it's been a long time since her James Bond heyday. Nowadays she's just an embarrassing old woman.Which leaves me to conclude that, as is sadly the case with a lot of modern horror films, the special effects are the only worthwhile things. There are some memorably slimy and gruesome bugs on view, with cockroaches of all sizes to give one the creeps, as well as horrible slimy maggots and slimy gunk everywhere. In fact, it's quite sickening, thanks to the reliable Screaming Mad George. As well as these horrors, there's the highlight of a burning corpse scene. There is also one of the most brutal murders ever put on film, where a helpless victim is beaten, broken and repeatedly stabbed in the chest without even being able to defend himself. It's horrible.I can only be glad that Brian Yuzna has rid himself of this trash and is now making enjoyable films again, like TICKS, THE DENTIST, and PROGENY. Let's just forget these little mishaps and concentrate on the present, not on the past. This film is ten years old already anyway.
GL84 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.
Woodyanders Feisty reporter Kim (an appealingly perky performance by the pretty Neith Hunter) investigates the mysterious fiery death of a young woman. Kim uncovers a lethal and mysterious coven of man-hating feminist lesbian witches who worship the powerful Egyptian goddess Isis and want to make Kim a new member. Director Brian Yuzna, working from a wickedly freaky, nasty, and original script by Woody Keith, capably crafts an engrossingly weird and warped shocker: Yuzna maintains a steady pace throughout, develops an appropriately spooky and ominous atmosphere, adds a few inspired moments of amusing dark humor, and piles on the tremendously revolting gross-out moments with real go-for-it unpleasant aplomb (stomach-knotting highlights include loads of icky squirmy giant bugs and larva, Kim giving birth to a vile over-sized insect, and Kim mutating into a giant slimy humanoid worm mutant). This movie further benefits from sound acting by an able cast, with stand-out contributions by Maud Adams as alluring cult leader Fima, Tommy Hinkley as Kim's horny, supportive boyfriend Hank, Allyce Beasley as sympathetic coworker Janice, and Reggie Banister as Kim's sexist jerk boss Eli. Clint Howard is genuinely creepy and unnerving as geeky and grubby cult flunky Ricky; Howard brutally butchers one man with a knife, strangles another guy with Christmas tree lights, and even has kinky ritualistic sex with Kim (yuck!). Screaming Mad George provides the deliciously grotesque make-up f/x. The yuletide setting, a pronounced sexually perverse angle, and the bizarre evil rituals all give this picture an extra twisted edge. Both Philip Holahan's slick cinematography and Richard Band's shuddery score are up to speed. Good grody fun.
Backlash007 ~Spoiler~ And I thought Silent Night, Deadly Night 3 was bad. Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: The Initiation is Halloween III all over again. But whereas Halloween III was a decent movie, Brian Yuzna has directed a turd. This film has very little in common with the other films in this series. Ricky Caldwell was the main villain in the previous two movies. In Part 4, Clint Howard plays a character named Ricky. However, a last name is never given and I just can't accept that he's the same guy. Also, the film does take place at Christmas time and they managed to sneak in footage from Part 3. But that's not enough to make it a Silent Night, Deadly Night flick. Because, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't remember giant cockroaches and a witch's coven being factors in a slasher movie about Santa Claus. Screaming Mad George, whose effects are usually terrifically twisted, are just okay in this one. Most of the effects are gross rather than cool. Yuzna is a hit or miss director. When he's good, he's good. But when he's bad, he's really bad. If you want to see his good work, check out his Re-animator sequels. If you love bad movies though watch Faust: Love of the Damned. I do have to say though that this is, by far, his worst picture.Note for genre buffs: Keep an eye out for Phantasm's Reggie Bannister. Even the Regman can't save this one.