Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation
Kim McNeil (Neith Hunter), a newspaper writer for the LA Eye, is investigating a woman's firey leap off an apartment building. As she delves into the case, bookstore owner Fema (Maud Adams) offers her to join her welcoming committee composed of solely women. Kim's given a strange book that deals with mythical aspects, and bugs start to invade her apartment. When Kim joins the group of the strangely nice women, they start to terrorize the young woman. They have ceremonies where they torment her with mutant bugs, her body once even turning into a bug! When it's finally revealed to Kim what they're attempting at, the group tells her she must sacrifice a young boy to keep from bursting into flames (literally)!
This unrelated sequel is definitely not for the squeamish! All of the gross mutant bugs, created by Screaming Mad George, are very effective in the shock department. If the bugs weren't enough to gross you out, Clint Howard plays Ricky (not to be confused with the previous film's killer), a sicko who does evil things for Fema. Clint, brother of Ron Howard (TV's Happy Days) does some very sickening things with the bugs, which made me almost want to throw up! This Brian Yuzna-directed sequel (in name only) is pretty entertaining, but sadly doesn't have a killer Santa Claus. Of course, there's footage from Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! shown on a TV. The title onscreen is Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4, and the film was frequently aired on the USA Network Channel in the early '90s. Also known as Bugs in the UK.
