SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 4: INITIATION (aka BUGS, 1990)

Streaming on Tubi!
Directed by Brian Yuzna.
Written by Brian Yuzna, S.J. Smith, Arthur Gorson.
Check out the trailer here!!

After a woman on fire falls to her death from the roof of a book store in the streets of LA, fledgling ginger reporter Kim Levitt (Neith Hunter) thinks there’s a deeper story afoot. Upon sleuthing around the book store, she meets the enigmatic Fima (Maud Adams) who leads a self-help group and invites Kim to join. Though her reporter boyfriend Hank (Tommy Hinkley) tries to steer her clear of this story, Kim is compelled to dive deep into this self-help guru’s methods. Turns out this group is a cult and have their sights on Kim to mother a child that may signal the end of existence as we know it. Oh yeah, it’s also Christmas-time.

As far as SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT sequels go, Part 4 INITIATION is a pretty bad sequel as it really have very little to do with Christmas. Any attempt to tie it into Christmas feels more like an afterthought than anything else with maybe one or two scenes, involving Kim visiting the home of her boyfriend’s parents for Christmas and then returning to that home to abduct a child. There is a guy named Ricky wandering around, this time played by go-to eighties weirdo Clint Howard. It is unclear as to whether this is the same Ricky who is the brother of the first killer Santa from SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT, then grew up to be a killer Santa Claus himself in Part 2, then became a comatose zombie killer Santa with a fishbowl on his head in Part 3. I guess, if you squint, whistle, and put your finger aside of your nose, you could make believe this hobo pushing a cart around LA and associating with death cults is the same Ricky who has been a thru-way in this entire series so far, but it is a mighty stretch indeed.

But that doesn’t mean SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 4: INITIATION is a bad movie.

If you forget this is a SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT sequel, INITIATION aka BUGS is actually a pretty wild ride filled with creepy twists, odd performances, and effects that will melt your brain. Brian Yuzna directed this film. Yes, the same Brian Yuzna who offered up SOCIETY, BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD III, and of course, THE DENTIST parts one and two. That’s a mighty cool resume and though there are definitely budgetary issues with INITIATION, it is filled with the kind of weirdness that I love. Effects guru Screaming Mad George lead the effects team. He helped bring to life the body horror of SOCIETY, the design of the Bride in BRIDE OF REANIMATOR and the undead gal in RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD III. And while the effects are more subdued for the bulk of INITIATION, there are some over the top sequences towards the end that really show George’s talents and Yuzna’s specialty of highlighting those horrors with giant cockroaches, enormous maggot creatures, and a birthing sequence that is downright surreal.

This is one depraved film. While it starts out as your typical story of a headstrong reporter investigating a cult, once we get into this cult stuff, the cheese slides right off the ritz. Any movie that has a scene where Clint Howard impregnates an unwilling woman with a maggot baby while wearing a dildo mask all while a group of naked women and men frolic around behind them is not your average film. Reminiscent of such nightmare films as BRAIN DEAD, THE VAGRANT, and the reality shredding THE EVIL WITHIN, INITIATION really delivers the goods when it comes to nightmare fuel.

And much like SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT 3: BETTER WATCH OUT, Part 4 has a pretty awesome cast of character actors. Maud Adams plays the role of the smokey voiced cult leader who tempts Kim over to the dark side. From the get-go, it’s pretty obvious she is up to no good, but it seems she’s having fun playing this depraved character. The aforementioned Clint Howard is also unhinged as all get out. One minute he is trying to help Kim, the next he’s trying to rape her. He even gnaws on a foot and seems to be the maggot wrangler of the entire cult operation. In smaller roles, we have Reggie Bannister making an appearance as Kim’s boss. MOONLIGHTING’s Miss DePesto herself Allyce Beasley plays, what else, a secretary. And BACK TO THE BEACH, THE TERROR WITHIN and MAD ABOUT YOU’s Tommy Hinkley plays Kim’s inept boyfriend.

I don’t think I’ve seen Neith Hunter before, but she gives a hell of a performance as the lead, Kim. This ginger hottie deserved a bigger career, but it doesn’t seem like she acts anymore and only had bit parts in BORN IN EAST LA, LESS THAN ZERO, and seems to reprise her role in SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT 5: THE TOY MAKER, which I have yet to see and will probably cover for next year’s Ho-Ho-Horror Reviews. And you heard me right. I used a hard R, when I said ginger. Being a ginger myself, I can do that. I’m allowed.

Though it has next to nothing to do with Christmas, SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 4: INITIATION is actually an ok watch. The gore is amazing. The plot is nuts. And you get to see some C-list actors doing some depraved and horrifying things. Yuzna put his all into this one, even though he had already completed SOCIETY at this point in his career and should have been able to do bigger things. Nevertheless, this film is better than it deserves to be.