There’s a discussion to be had about how the age of streaming has either destroyed the concept of a made-for-television movie or revived it. Either way, The Initiation of Sarah shows its age as a nearly forty-five-year-old broadcast for television while being exactly the sort of film you could stumble across on Netflix or Shudder.
The most notable horror name attached to it is Tom Holland (writer and director of Fright Night and Child’s Play) making his first writing credit. It is only a story by credit though with three other writers credited for the screenplay. Nonetheless, Holland gets his own mini-feature on the disc explaining how he only wrote the initial treatment before it went through numerous rewrites, though he says the structure still remains. It’s a fun supplement but it could have been interesting to interview Carol Saraceno, credited with both story and screenplay.
Then again, as explained in critic Samantha McLaren’s ‘The Intimations of Sarah’ supplement, the making-of story is likely a straightforward one of practicality rather than creativity. McLaren explains that the goal of made-for-television movies at the time was to be made as cheaply as possible. As such, a story about telekinesis is perfect for a low-budget television production as you don’t need much in terms of effects, just an actor who can stare well. It is also no coincidence that when The Initiation of Sarah aired, Monday, February 6th 1978, Brian De Palma’s Carrie had recently aired on television for the first time. In fact, the script was tweaked from witchcraft to telekinesis and there’s even a similar cracked mirror scene.
There is still enough fun originality here to differentiate the films. We begin with the central pair, Patty and her adopted sister Sarah, having fun with their fellow teens on the beach during the last party of summer before they go away to university. Sarah’s telekinetic powers are quickly introduced when Patty is assaulted by one of the male teens and Sarah, spotting them from a distance, knocks him into the sea. It is ambiguous whether Patty is aware of her sister’s power, but immediately we get a sense of their closeness and differences.
The latter is further exposed once they arrive at Waltham College, notably residing near Salem, as they end up joining separate sororities. Patty, as the prettier and more outgoing though actually more nervous of the two, is swayed by the clearly Mean-Girls-Esque but superficially appealing Alpha Nu Sigma (ANS). According to her mother, a former member, this is where you “meet the kids that count.” Sarah, meanwhile, finds kinship with Phi Epsilon Delta (PED) who reside in a Gothic-looking house guarded by a dog Azarak, owned by the house mother, Mrs Hunter (played by Academy Award winner Shelley Winters).
The film had unsubtly established through Paul’s lectures the moral question of whether evil powers can exist in good people and “how conflicting elements can be embodied in the same person.” Though this theme is as flagrantly signposted as its set pieces of Sarah unleashing her powers, its predictability does not take away from it being an engaging narrative.
The film then largely plays out as a campus-based coming-of-age drama as Mrs Hunter discovers and gradually develops Sarah’s powers. Upon pledging with their sororities, the rivalry between ANS and PED emerges as Patty is commanded by house mother Jennifer Laurence (who bears no resemblance to the actress of the same name who wouldn’t be born for another twelve years) to not associate with PED, or as they cruelly call them Pigs Elephants or Dogs. Being separated from her sister, Sarah falls under Mrs Hunter’s supervision and decides to revive the initiation ceremony, which was abandoned twenty years ago after a girl involved committed suicide. Apparently.
At this point, the film shifts into an occult mystery with mixed results as numerous plotlines vie for attention. Mrs Hunter remains an elusive but evidently malevolent figure with the suggestion that she could be Sarah’s missing mother. Sarah also develops a friendship with Mouse, as quiet as her name suggests, and, perhaps unintentionally, a more convincing romantic relationship than Sarah has with teaching assistant Paul Yates. I don’t have much knowledge about American universities, but do teaching assistants give lectures as he does and isn’t this whole relationship inappropriate and does the film actually know this?
Eventually, we reach the titular initiation that takes place in an ominous hedge maze near PHD’s garden providing a satisfyingly dramatic climax to the film. The film had unsubtly established through Paul’s lectures the moral question of whether evil powers can exist in good people and “how conflicting elements can be embodied in the same person.” Though this theme is as flagrantly signposted as its set pieces of Sarah unleashing her powers, its predictability does not take away from it being an engaging narrative.
Whatever shortcomings the film may have, this release mounts a good defence for it. In her audio commentary, Amanda Reyes, a film historian specifying in made-for-television movies, disputes its reputation as a knock-off Carrie and highlights creative choices like how the lighting of the sorority houses subverts expectations; the brightly lit ANS house masks its conniving meanness, while the dark PEN house is lit up by its friendly, supportive inhabitants. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas provides her trademark insightful visual essay for Arrow using the film as a case study for the impact of Second Wave Feminism in its competing definitions of sisterhood and how, as a made-for-television movie, it could engage with such contemporary politics quickly.
It is a charming short created by hosts of the Gaylords of Darkness podcast, Stacie Ponder and Anthony Hudson, which gives the best case of The Initiation of Sarah being slight but fun with a convincing list of reasons to love it. It feels more like a promo than a supplement but it summarises the film entertainingly. Ultimately, this release shows Arrow at its best, highlighting a relatively obscure film and giving it a deserved turn in the spotlight.
The Initiation of Sarah is out now on Arrow Video Blu-Ray
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