"Initiation" a serviceable #MeToo slasher

Initiation (2021)

Genre fans are always holding out for the next great slasher film. Since "Scream" revitalized the stalk-and-slash craze from the 1980s (and "The Cabin in the Woods" was a celebratory love letter to the horror genre as a whole), we are due for another. "Initiation" probably isn’t going to be a post-post-modern mainstay, but it is at least more concerned with making a statement on social issues through an up-to-the-minute #MeToo lens than just dishing out kills to an attractive cast. In some respects, it has more in common with Sophia Takal’s 2019 reimagining of "Black Christmas," which took big swings to address campus rape culture but ultimately fell into bold, underlined, and italicized heavy-handedness. Unlike that film, "Initiation" more realistically deals with its sober subject matter and seems less afraid of being a slasher whodunit. 

“Initiation” begins amusingly, the camera creeping down a hallway toward a closed door as a young woman’s screams get louder. When the door flies open, it’s just a sorority pledge playfully screaming and laughing as her “big” chases after her with a water gun. It’s Rush Week at Whiton University, where fraternity Sigma Nu Pi is hosting a homecoming party with sorority Kappa Nu. Neon debauchery ensues with “pink drink” pong and joints being passed. In a chapter room, reprehensible Sigma Nu Pi president Beau (Gattlin Griffith) explains to all of his pledges about their traditional initiation of picking a sorority chick, sleeping with her, and then tagging her on social media with an exclamation point. One of the brothers, Wes (Froy Gutierrez), dismisses this tradition aloud. Afterward, Wes and his actual sister, Ellery (Lindsay LaVanchy), the president of Kappa Nu, pass a joint while scrolling through social media. As the night comes to a close, Ellery looks for her “little,” Kylie (Isabella Gomez), to get her home. She finds her upstairs in a bedroom, passed out on a bed. Next to Kylie on the mattress is Wes, and the whole situation seems to be grossly controlled by Beau. It’s not until the morning that Ellery sees Kylie tagged in a photo and Wes having commented with an “!.” Read the full review at Horror Obsessive.

Grade: C +

Saban Films is releasing "Initiation" (96 min.) in theaters, On Demand, and digital on May 7, 2021.