Review of Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation

The second in a trio of Brian Yuzna-directed early-90s sequels to 80s horror classics, this one stands out - as particularly uninspired. Bride of Re-Animator was a decent direct sequel, continuing the story where it ended in Re-Animator, while Return of the Living Dead III surprisingly re-animated a left-for-dead franchise with a new story bearing only some connections to the original (and missing its humor). Both of them were B-movies, sure, but they had good ideas, the weird make-up effects that Society, Yuzna's freaky debut, made him known for, and lots of B-charm of their own. Why Yuzna even bothered with the trite SNDN series I don't know - probably it started with a late-night call like this: " Well, that last Silent Night Deadly Night movie did OK, so if you have anything which we could somehow distribute under that franchise, we'll do it." The only thing that connects this one to the others is the character of Ricky (this time it's the great Clint Howard in one of his lamest performances) who's shot-to-goo brain has healed remarkably well in just one year. Well, the bum he plays may as well be named Ron or Gerald - and probably was before they tried to make some unnecessary connection with the SNDN series. The story is uninteresting from the start, the acting is bland (the unknown Neith Hunter probably got the lead because she was willing to do the slime-trenched nude scenes) and yes, there's Yuzna's trademark scenes involving Screaming Mad George's body melt effects which are fun as always, but they are few and short, hardly worth the wait. As there's hardly any Christmas connections either, this one doesn't even qualify for a Trashmas video night in the holidays.