Overview: While trying to understand a frightening reoccurring nightmare, a pledge is coaxed into breaking into her father's department store by her sorority sisters, where a deranged killer targets the girls and their boyfriends.

Blu-ray Verdict: Kelly (Daphne Zuniga) is haunted by a vision – possibly a memory – of her father attacking his wife's lover and setting him on fire. Or is it the other way around? Along with her sorority sisters, Kelly is in the midst of an initiation, and now it's "Hell Week". The big plan is to break into a shopping mall and steal the uniform of the security guard – the "Fright Night" toward which the story progresses. Along the way we are introduced, via the standard POV shot, to a fork-wielding killer, who's working his way through the kids, apparently to get to Kelly. Could it be the burnt man from her vision?

Kelly goes to Peter (James Read), a psychology graduate with a penchant for blandly name-dropping Freud and Jung, and who's the kind of bore who goes to a college party and grumbles, "I, too, arrested my development for four years." She falls for him and he helps to unlock her madness. It is psychology as detective work, and this whole subplot drags an already quite ordinary film down in the most clunky and unconvincing way.

As Kelly, it's an early role for Zuniga (she was also Princess Vespa in 'Spaceballs'), and her wit and charisma carries the film while its other elements fail her. 'The Initiation' simply isn't very well made. It's not the budget, or the workmanlike makeup effects, or the clearly moving corpses. It's not the typically leering camera-work, or the bland and sometimes unfocused framing. It's the lack of interesting ideas. And any deviations from the slasher formula – ie: the aforementioned pseudo psychology – feel like dull digressions rather than adding depth.

Tonally it's all over the place, with the tension too frequently punctuated by sub-Animal House frat pratting (all the boys are mindless jesters, of course). I mean, at one point, a dramatic crescendo is completely undone when one of the characters looks at the camera for a winking reaction. Sound like fun? Not when the film had shown zero signs of willfully breaking the fourth wall up to that point, no, sorry!

In closing, the lovely Daphne Zuniga does a fine job in her first big feature role, and the one that she does surprisingly get strong support from re: her co-stars, include the stunningly beautiful Hunter Tylo (here acting under the name Deborah Morehart). The tempo and "thrills" culminate in a feverish climax with more than one big reveal (it was filmed in the 80's, after all), but doesn't save it from all the above mentioned viewpoints. That said, 'The Initiation' is still a decent enough movie to pop into your Blu-ray player on a rainy night with friends - and popcorn (and maybe some beer too!) This is a new High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

Brand new restoration from original film elements
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
Original Uncompressed Mono PCM audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Brand new audio commentary by The Hysteria Continues
Brand new interview with actor Christopher Bradley
Brand new interview with actress Joy Jones
Original Theatrical Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Justin Osbourn
+ FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic James Oliver