Angel of Muzak

I've spent most of my adult life assuming I'd seen Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge, mostly because it was so often summoned in conversations as "you know, that '80s mall horror movie with the escalator death." The number of conversations I've had where I just continued talking about The Kiss (the OTHER '80s mall horror movie with an escalator death), never realizing there were TWO '80s mall horror movies with escalator deaths, well, in hindsight, there were a lot of miscommunication.

Quick Plot: The town of Midwood's long nightmare of shopping in the rain has come to an end. There's a new mall opening!

The teens scoop up part-time jobs, while mayor Morgan Fairchild struts around with a multi-tiered perm and even bigger shoulder pads to match her confidence in capitalism. There's new fashion on sale and arcades to roam. Pauly Shore serves frozen yogurt with sides of gross props because in the '80s, it was a requirement for any goofy dark-haired sidekick to love horror prop humor. Things are going so well that nobody REALLY notices how some of the mall's more immorally minded employees are turning up dead in wild ways.

Mall restaurant Melody and local newspaper photographer Peter are the exception. Melody is already on edge, having recently lost her beloved boyfriend Eric to a mysterious fire. Eric was a fine young man who happened to live on property needed for the mall's construction. Surely there was no connection!

A cobra-in-the-bathroom bite, skateboard accident, and of course, impalement by miniature scaled model of mall later, and we have one very satisfied Emily. I don't know much about its origins (the screenplay is credited to Friday the 13th: The Series alumni Scott Schnied and Tony Michelman, Frederick R. Ulrich, and eventual Evil/The Good Wife showrunner Robert King), but director Richard Friedman seems to be having a LOT of fun. There are even hints of a pre-Josie & the Pussycats subliminal capitalist messaging. All this in the same mall set used for Chopping Mall? You can't get me to Shudder fast enough. 

High Points

I don't know that I've ever been so enthused by a CAR CHASE in an '80s horror film, but when you toss pedestrians in the way in an indoor mall parking garage, I am IN

Low Points

The ingenue is rarely the most layered character in any story (particularly one with "Phantom" in the title) and while Kari Whitman is appealingly sweet as Melody, the film never gives her enough time or complexity. Her declaration of being in love with Peter comes out of nowhere, which is a shame when there certainly was an opportunity to explore what it means to move on from modified widowdom

Lessons Learned

A reporter's instincts can get out of hand quickly

Removing a body from a cemetery is both illegal AND sacrilegious

Major stockholder means major profit

Rent/Bury/Buy

Golly did I have fun with this one! It's got everything you want in an '80s mall-set horror film, including Morgan Fairchild in a cobalt blue sequined V-neck evening gown. Have at it!

Sarah Plain & Tall & Telekinetic

Shelley Winters in a 1978 made-for-TV Carrie ripoff streaming on Netflix? You can bet your Olympic swimming medal that has a place at The Doll’s House!

Quick Plot: The beautiful Patty and her mousy adopted sister Sarah are heading to college, the alma mater of their sorority queen mom/pointedly adopted sorority queen mom. Patty dreams of joining the likes of queen bee Jennifer (played by the always fabulously bitchy Morgan Fairchild) at the Alpha Bitcha Bitcha House (I didn’t write the name down, but I’m pretty sure that was it) while dowdy Sarah joins the girls with less money, looks, and manners over at Phi Blah Blah House. She also strikes up a mildly inappropriate romance with one of her teachers and reveals, as Patty is forced to play the Alpha Bitcha Bitcha role, a fairly obvious case of Carrie White.

Much like The Spell, The Initiation of Sarah is a made-for-TV leftover of the Carrie juggernaut. Apparently in the late 1970s, socially awkward teenage girls with telekinetic powers were all the rage, while their mean-girl tormenters ensured acting roles would always be available for icy blonds. Brunettes, on the other hand, were safely ensured the chance to play the dumpy girl’s even dumpier buddies (how Mia Farrow’s sister snuck in as Sarah’s violin-playing pal is a mystery) and thus keep the status quo safely in line.

And that’s were it stays in this far-too-slow movie. Though well acted by its young cast, The Initiation of Sarah is sadly duller than that freshman psychology class I took where my professor uttered the expression ‘um’ 60 times in two minutes (I counted, which was more interesting than the ummish lecture). As Sarah, Kay Lenz is fine, but hardly the tragic victim of Sissy Spacek, while sister Patty (Morgan Brittany) is quite likable, even if her story never finds a snug place to fit into the supernatural development of Sarah’s heritage. Because oh yeah...her birth mother was killed in a bewitching sorority ceremony by Shelley Winters. Or something.

See, Shelley Winters is Shelley Winters. Big, boisterous, intimidating at dinner parties and I imagine, DMV lines but also a presence that simply demands your attention. You understand why she’s credited as making a “special appearance” here because without the pure power of this sassy dame, The Initiation of Sarah would be pretty hard to survive.

It’s not a terrible movie; just a dull one. At around 95 minutes, The Initiation of Sarah somehow feels epic, even though the running time covers barely half a semester. A good deal of that is Netflix listing the film in the category of “Horror Films.” When more time is spent on Sarah’s Cinderella makeover and reinvigoration of her dowdy sorority than human sacrifice or dropping pianos on people (tease!), it makes for a tad souring of my evening.

High Points

Ain’t no bitch can deliver a line like “Girls! Put on your hoods!” with quite the same panache as Shelley

Low Points

If you’re going to spend five minutes setting up a piano being suspended from the second floor vicariously as minor villains pass over it, how dare you--HOW DARE YOU SIR I SAY--end the scene without...you know, ACTUALLY dropping the piano on someone

Lessons Learned

When a man you hardly know tells you that you look good in your bathing suit then escorts you into the water, he probably wants something a little more physical than synchronized swimming

Sororities aren’t all that bad. They just make you do horrible things to test your loyalty

In the 70s campus life, kissing was far more aggressive, perhaps because the whole damned world was drinking coffee

When lifting weights, think carefully before having your ticklesome girlfriend act as your spotter

The best insult to hurl at a nervous college student is to tease her for being a prodigy

Side Note

Apparently there exists a 2006 remake made for the ABC Family Channel and starring the TOTALLY mousy and unattractive Summer Glau in the title role, with Fairchild popping back in to play her mother. Not sure if there’s a shirtless Robert Hays or piano death though

Rent/Bury/Buy

I almost feel unqualified to give an ultimate ranking of this film. Is it fair to say I didn’t like The Initiation of Sarah because it wasn’t trashy? When the worst thing the bad girls do to our heroine is throw tomatoes and mud (or maybe poop; it’s more interesting if it’s poop, so let’s say poop) her way, it just doesn’t do much to give me any reason to smile.   The film is streaming, so it certainly doesn’t hurt to try out The Initiation of Sarah, but don’t expect a huge finale. There are a few deaths and a mild ‘splosion, but nothing that a little Piper Laurie prayers couldn’t top.