Customer Reviews

Silent Night Deadly Night 4 - Initiation [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

No relation to earlier films in the series (I haven't seen #3 yet) which is a good thing.
The movie stars Maud Adams (007's MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and OCTOPUSSY) and Clint Howard (Ron's brother).
A female news reporter Kim (Neith Hunter) is investigating the mysterious case of a woman's death by spontaneous combustion, which are linked to a bizzare satanic cult led by occult bookstore owner Adams and her freaky son Howard, who are on a quest for immortality.
The movie is still nothing special, although there is a standout scene where Hunter is lying on her back in the grass looking up at some trees and the trees form the image of a face smiling down at her, and another good scene where a topless Hunter vomits bugs then her face melts. Nice huh? Merry Xmas everyone.

There is no connection between this film and the first three in the series, but that is not an automatic positive.

This straightforward, gruesome story has a cute plucky reporter with boyfriend troubles investigating the mysterious death of a woman, and getting caught up in a witches' coven led by Maud Adams, eons from "Octopussy."

The lead actress is easy on these tired eyes, Clint Howard plays the same nutjob role he always gets outside of his brother's films, and the movie keeps a tight pace. But take away the "Part 4" from the title, and this is just another straight to video gorefest that was not good enough to get wide release in the theaters first. Sure, the gore involving giant bugs is good, but there is nothing really special here. That said, this is still severed head and shoulders above the first three entries in the series.

This is rated (R) for strong physical violence, sexual violence, strong gore, profanity, female nudity, brief male nudity, sexual content, and adult situations.

The Film: Silent Night Deadly Night 4 Initiation
Year Released: 1990

Overview: A beautiful reporter, Kim (Neith Hunter) is the witness of a woman who falls to her death and spontaneously combusts into flames. She begins to investigate the death of the woman, but finds herself caught up in a group of witches who want her to be their new member. Only trouble is, Kim refuses to be one of them!

The Package: 3 Stars. This review is for the VHS tape of this film, from live home video. The tape is recorded in SP mode which is what you want when it comes to VHS. The box is interesting. The white box cover, combined with a woman holding a large knife and a Christmas tree in the background makes this look interesting and something I would want to buy.

Spook Meter: 2 Stars. Their is nothing really scary here at all. A few scenes with Ricky will give you a light "chill" but nothing much. This has nothing to do with the first brilliant film Silent Night Deadly Night. The only thing this film has to do with it at all is a guy named Ricky is in this but the story has nothing to do with the original film. Don't expect any kind of Santa killing people, because it's just not here. I don't have a problem with that, if this was a great film in itself, but it's not very good. I almost don't even consider this a horror film; it's more along the lines of mystery/suspense. The concept of this is interesting but this just kind of plods along with only a few parts throughout that sort of grab the viewer's attention but not for long. Kim (Neith Hunter) does a very good job acting, as with Ricky (Clint Howard) which does help things some.

Gore/Violence Meter: 3 Stars. There is some blood/gore here but not a whole lot. A few scenes are a bit gory so I bumped up the meter one notch. There are some parts that may gross out some viewers but it's not over the top by any means.

Profanity Meter: 4 Strikes. There is a lot of language in this film, which I find dissapointing.

Sexual Meter: 4 Strikes. There are scenes where a woman's breasts are shown. There is some fairly strong sexual make out scenes that maybe considered pretty strong and some viewers will not wish to see.

Final Thoughts: This is ok in some aspects. If you watch this with the idea that it's nothing to do with the first Silent Night Deadly Night and if you don't expect a deep horror thrill ride, then you might kind of find this interesting to watch since it does have some interesting twists and turns that might spark your interest some. Not a total disappointment by any means, but could have been much better.

It looks low-budget, but I still found parts of it scary, and other parts hand-over-mouth gross. And it wasn't clear what would happen next, which was good.

Also, this has some great scenes filmed in older Los Feliz, Los Angeles, above the cool Fred 64 restaurant now!

I thought nothing could be worse than part 2 or 3 but we have a new candiate here for Initiation(which should have been the title of the movie)is the worst in the series by far. First off it has nothing to with the series and doesn't have anything to do with christmas(don't be fooled by the x-mas tree on the cover,you won't see santa in this movie)and the isn't even remotely entertaining to say the least. Its about a cult the manipulates a TV reporter into joining their cult. The movie has stupid effects with bugs as other reviewers have said and the effects are downright awful. This is the halloween 3 of the series,it is a bad excuse for a side story that should have never have been a movie in the first place just like (Season Of The Witch)or (New Beginning) of Friday The 13th for that matter.In other words the movie doesn't belong. SKIP THIS AND SEE THE CLASSIC HORROR MOVIE(1984/SILENT NIGHT,DEADLY NIGHT)INSTEAD AND YOU WILL BE GLAD YOU DID!

I love the SN,DN series, and I shudder to think that I almost gave the series up after seeing this crap(my first viewing of any chapter in this series). It involves a woman being forced to join an evil cult of man-hating she-demons. Their henchman is named Ricky, but it is definately not the Ricky from the last 3 films. He is well acted by Clint Howard, but a very boring character. All of the acting here is horrid (except Clint's of course...) and the story is confusing, boring, sexist, and just plain bad. True, the first one in the series was bad, but in a good, fun sort of way. This movie just sucks. The special effects are good, but that and Clint are the only things that are. This movie has very little to do with Christmas and NOTHING to do with the first three films. SN,DN parts 2,3,and 5 are all five-star movies. The original is only a three-star movie and this is a no-star movie. I only gave it one star because I had to. Please, AVOID SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT 4: INITIATION, LIKE THE PLAGUE! IT IS VERY VERY BAD!

Don't watch this movie. It has nothing to do with the Silent Night, Deadly Night series....in fact, it has nothing to do with Santa Claus, and barely even mentions Christmas. This is one of the worst movies I have seen. The only worth is the absolute disgust you feel when a woman is essentially molested by large unnatural insects, that is, if you like that kind of stuff.

the fourth installment in the silent night deadly night series is not worth your money this movie had nothing to do with the first three movies and had a thing for using bugs instead of blood save your money and skip this waste of time

When it comes to the Christmas season we feel it necessary to sprinkle in some b relating to our favorite holiday. Since it's our roots we always like to bring at least one horror into play. Last year we went with the extremely laughable Christmas Evil and decided this year to go with one of the Silent Night Deadly Night flicks. The reason for choosing the 4th installment was simple...CLINT HOWARD. With that name tagged to a movie there really is no other choice besides moving forward. Unfortunately this mess couldn't capitalize off of a very insane homeless Howard leaving it a 1 star rating at best.

Within the first minute of the film we were sure that it would be a classic when Clint Howard finds a half eaten burger on the side of the road and digs in. As he scarfs his newly found treat he watches a women screaming atop a building. For some reason she catches fire as she spills to the streets and we just laughed and laughed. From there we're introduced to the main character reporter lady as she gets plowed by her greased up boyfriend to be interrupted by the story of the dead woman. She decides she wants to report the case and gets approval from her boss, who just happened to be Reggie from the Phantasm series. Yes the same Reggie we've always claimed to look like Clint, and here they are in the same movie which should have been so sweet. But it wasn't which is why our synopsis has to end here.

With a street wandering Clint Howard, his stunt double Reggie, and a kid named Lonny we can't understand how this one wasn't a great success. It's a real mystery why they decided to switch up the premise of these films at number 4, but it was a grave mistake. The potential was limitless and should have been so bad it's good with ease. We really tried so hard to be interested by it but couldn't get past the boring premise and horrific acting. Now we are going to have to find some other Christmas horror b to wash away the memory of this waste. So this one will get the patent when you return it to the video store of "he's gone, the evils gone from here!"

I am a big fan of the Silent Night,Deadly Night series and feel that it was unjustly picketted on its original's release. You have to admit a killer Santa is original! The fourth installment is one of my favorites because it features my all time favorite actor, Clint Howard in a wonderfully creepy performance. I will say one thing, If you really,really love holiday movies with a good Christmas feeling don't see this,but if you like the earlier films and don't know a fourth film exists, it does and I think you'll like it.