Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4

Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 (1990)

If I die before I wake... thank you.

A reporter investigating the bizarre death of a woman who leaped from a building in flames finds herself mixed up in a cult of witches who are making her part of their sacrificial ceremony during the Christmas season.

Date of release
1990-11-21
TMDB
4.3 / 10 (97)
Runtime
1h 27m
Genres
Horror
Director
Brian Yuzna
Collection
Silent Night, Deadly Night Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Los Angeles

Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation is a 1990 American supernatural horror film directed by Brian Yuzna, written by Yuzna, Woody Keith, and Arthur Gorson, and starring Maud Adams, Tommy Hinkley, Allyce Beasley, Clint Howard and Neith Hunter. It focuses on a Los Angeles newspaper reporter who, while investigating the unexplained death of a woman, becomes entangled with a coven of Lilith-worshipping witches who are preparing her for a ritual on Christmas Eve. The fourth installment in the Silent Night, Deadly Night film series, it bears no resemblance to the previous films, as it drops the storyline of the Billy Chapman and Ricky Caldwell characters entirely.

Production

Director Brian Yuzna was approached to direct the fourth movie in the Silent Night, Deadly Night film series in 1989 by LIVE Entertainment, who had previously acquired distribution rights to his second directorial feature, Bride of Re-Animator (1990).

Yuzna sought to present the protagonist of Kim as an analog of the Lilith figure, as her character is largely controlled by the men in her life, and she finds independence after encountering the coven; however, her eventual initiation into the coven proves to be nefarious and oppressive in and of itself, and merely another situation "from which she needs to free herself as well."

Stylistically and narratively, the film departs significantly from the Christmas-themed slasher elements of the previous three films, which focused on serial killer Bill Chapman, who went on a murder rampage while dressed in a Santa Claus costume.

LIVE Entertainment pushed for the casting of Maud Adams as the coven leader, Fima, based on her identifiability for her portrayal of two Bond girls in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) and Octopussy (1983). Clint Howard was cast as the coven's henchman Ricky, while model Neith Hunter auditioned for the lead role of Kim. Hunter had previously had minor appearances in the films Born in East L.A.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation was shot in Los Angeles in the spring of 1990 over approximately 18 days, with principal photography completing on April 15, 1990. The sequences that occur at Hank's parents' home were filmed in an empty house in the escrow process in West Covina.

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