Mark Reviews Movies: INITIATION

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 6, 2021

The killer stalking the grounds of a college campus isn't the primary focus of Initiation—until the murderer has to be, of course. This is, after all, a horror film, in which several people are dispatched in setpieces of grisly, bloody carnage. The masked killer's weapon of choice, by the way, is a power drill, which leads, as one could easily guess, to some pretty nasty imagery of helplessness and penetrated flesh. When the killer's identity is revealed, it becomes clear that screenwriters John Berardo (who also directed), Brian Frager, and Lindsay LaVanchy (who also stars) put some thought into that selection of weapon.

This is a surprisingly smart little film, which is more about the drama happening in between the murders than the killings themselves. It revolves around at least two accusations of sexual assault on the campus where the killer is hunting. Both of them involve a star athlete, currently on track to go to the upcoming Olympics, and the investigations of both allegations seem to be going nowhere. The film doesn't let us know if the young man is guilty or innocent of the accused crimes, because that's ultimately the point. Nothing of substance is done, until someone decides to do something incredibly and criminally substantial for everyone to witness.

The athlete is Wes (Froy Gutierrez), a swimmer who has brought some positive attention to the university—and who promises to bring a lot more, if he ends up competing for an Olympic medal. His elder sister Ellery (LaVanchy) is an intern at the school's science lab and a member of a sorority that's connected to Wes' fraternity. As a homecoming party at the frat house comes to a close, Ellery is making sure her sorority sisters get home safely, but Kylie (Isabella Gomez) is missing.

Ellery finds her in a locked bedroom, being guarded by her brother's roommate Dylan (Berardo). Inside the room, Wes and Beau (Gattlin Griffith) are quick to distance themselves from a nearly unconscious Kylie. The guys swear nothing happened. Kylie can't speak of it now, and in the morning, she doesn't remember what may or may not have occurred.

On the surface of this, the question, of course, is whether or not Wes and/or Beau assaulted Kylie. A deeper question is whether or not anything will be done of the possibility that a crime occurred, and the even more pertinent one is if anyone will do anything about the crime, if it did happen.

The central drama revolves around Ellery, who knows her brother was involved in an "incident" a year prior—one that resulted in the school absolving Wes but temporarily suspending the fraternity. Ellery doesn't tell Kylie, although she insists that her sorority sister contact the police about it. A skeptical and uncertain Kylie doesn't believe anything will come of an investigation, even if a crime did happen. When Wes replies to a photo on Kylie's social media account with an exclamation point, a symbol the frat guys use to mark someone with whom they've had sex, Ellery begins to doubt her brother's asserted and presumed innocence.

Before any of the killing begins, the screenplay takes its time establishing the character dynamics and the culture—both in real life and online—here, because they're the real meat of this story. Ellery loves and protects her younger brother, until that online post makes her doubt that protection. The frat guys have made a game of sex, shame, and sexual assault. The college chancellor (played by Lochlyn Munro) speaks a good game about taking accusations seriously, but he talks in even stronger terms about the school's perception and its well-to-do alumni.

When Wes is killed by someone wearing a reflective mask (a fairly loaded piece of symbolism, which Berardo wisely doesn't belabor) and carrying a high-powered electric drill, the film's concerns and conversations shift a bit. They move toward the killer's possible identity, who's next on the murderer's list, and just how gruesome the next killings will be.

That, importantly, doesn't stop the real point here, which has to do Ellery's conflicted attitude toward her now-dead brother, the possibility that Wes' potential accomplices might get away with their participation in a crime, and the incompetence of or intentional cover-up by school officials in actually looking into accusations of harassment and sexual assault. The detective (played by Yancy Butler) in charge of the murder investigation is particularly annoyed with what looks like systemic failure, while the cop (played by Jon Huertas) who found Wes' body assures Ellery that he'll catch whoever killed her brother.

There are additional killings, obviously, each one more brutal and shocking than the previous one (A bathroom stall is flooded with toilet water and blood, and the killer waits for one victim to finish pleasuring himself, just so the murderer catches the guy at his most vulnerable point). Berardo doesn't play games with red herrings or fake scares, partly because that would cheapen the viciousness of these killings, but mostly because the film actually has more important matters to explore and discuss between the sequences of slaying. The climax, which has Ellery and her friends trapped in a locked administration building with the killer, makes especially good use of open spaces and tall windows, through which Ellery can watch and do nothing as her hiding friend is approached by the killer.

We have a basic idea of the killer's motives and methods, but the final reveal does come as a genuine, startling surprise. Initiation raises more questions—about the failures of systems, about uncertainty, about justice—than it wants to or can answer, but that's not a shortcoming. It's the whole point.

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