User Reviews

Originally airing on February 6, 1978, this movie reminds me of a very important lesson: the occult was everywhere in the 1970's and it was ready to screw your life up.

The film opens with Sarah (Kay Lenz, House) who joins her stepsister Patty (Morgan Brittany, who was in Death Car on the Freeway and was Katherine Wentworth on Dallas, who was Bobby's killer before the shower scene retcon) going to the beach. A young man forces himself on Patty and Sarah saves her with telekinesis.

The movie tries to set things up with Sarah as some ugly duckling, but in every other movie I've seen Kay Lenz in, she is portrayed as being attractive. That's the only hollow note in this movie.

The girls go off to college, where they both plan on joining Alpha Nu Sigma. Their mother is even the head of the alumni committee, so it's a big deal for her to get her biological daughter, Patty, in. For some reason, Patty is welcomed with open arms while Sarah is directed to joining Phi Epsilon Delta.

All of the PED girls are rude and ill-tempered other than Mouse (Tisa Farrow, Zombi 2, Anthropophagus), a shy girl who everyone else is mean to. Mouse just wants to play her violin because otherwise she gets nuts!

Jennifer (80's sex symbol Morgan Fairchild), the head of ANS, forbids her sisterhood from fraternizing with the PED girls, which tears the sisters apart. Meanwhile, Sarah starts to fall for Paul (Tony Bill, Are You in the House Alone?) while staying wary of den mother Mrs. Hunter (Shelley Winters in an unhinged performance).

Even after she uses her powers to shove Jennifer into a fountain, Sarah doesn't want to give in to her powers. But once the ANS girls retaliate and throw food and mud at her, she gives in to Mrs. Hunter's call to hatred and gives in to an initiation ceremony.

That ceremony? It involves blowing off the evil girl's dresses, permanently ruining Jennifer's face and killing Mouse, but Sarah decides at the last second to kill both herself and Mrs. Hunter to stop the sacrifice.

As the film ends, Patty joins PED and becomes friends with Mouse. They both mourn the loss of Sarah.

These are the kind of movies that made me glad that I went to art school and a downtown college instead of a real university. That said, I would not be eligible for a sorority, so I guess the point is moot.

This movie also has appearances by Michael Talbott (Freddy from Carrie), Robert Hayes (Airplane!), Deborah Ryan (Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park), Talia Balsam (The Supernaturals) and Kathryn Grant (The Night the World Exploded).

It's the two Morgan's of "Dallas" (Fairchild and Brittany) as typical big haired 70's sorority beauties versus the revenge of the lesser sorority destroyed out of a long running feud. Morgan Brittany and Kay Lenz are sisters, although Lenz was adopted, the daughter of Kathryn Crosby, once head of the sorority Morgan Fairchild now runs. The housemother of the lesser sorority, Shelley Winters, has a secret agenda against the other sorority, and Lenz's entrance into her domain gives Winters the weapon she needs. Fairchild plays a character who delights in her cruelty, and the thrills are obvious in watching her pay for her evil actions.

This TV ripoff of "Carrie" is fresh enough on its own to seem fairly original, basically close to being another "Devil's Daughter" or "Satan's School For Girls". Winters is captivating, campy in the conclusion yet commanding rather than laughable. There's a bit of insinuation of Lenz's true mother that isn't really confirmed. The presence of Robert Hays as one of the male students might create some unintentional laughs, simply because of his role in a certain movie spoof just a few years later. Even with several unanswered questions, this is a TV horror melodrama deserving of its cult status. I'm not going to bother with the remake; this one satisfies quite nicely.

"The Initiation of Sarah" tells the tale of a college freshman (Kay Lenz) with telekinetic powers. She is pressured to join a sorority after her sister (Morgan Brittany) is recruited to a rival chapter run by a group of popular bullies. It just so happens that the house Sarah pledges is run by a witch (Shelley Winters). She wants to use the girl to exact revenge on the daughter (Morgan Fairchild) of the sorority girl that spurned her when she was a student 20 years earlier. Will Sarah give into the temptation to put her and the house mother's tormenting rivals in their place or resist the unrelenting anger brewing within her?

Although it's a bit slow, "The Initiation of Sarah" serves up some fun TV-safe scares. I can see this airing the week of Halloween in 1978 and doing quite well in the Nielsen ratings. No one can deny the influence "Carrie" had on this movie. Shelley Winters ("The Poseidon Adventure") effectively plays the creepy old house mother with diabolical plans for the naïve Sarah. Morgan Fairchild ("The Seduction") is perfect as the venomous leader of the mean sorority girls who pick on poor Sarah. Morgan Brittany ("Dallas") and Kay Lenz ("Moving Violation") are wonderful as the two sisters torn apart by their rival houses.

Shy Sarah Goodwin (a strong and sympathetic portrayal by the lovely Kay Lenz) and her more outgoing half sister Patti (stunning brunette Morgan Brittany) go off to college together. Patti gets accepted into the snobby ANS sorority while poor Sarah has to stay at the oddball intellectual misfit sorority PED. PED's weird witch housemother Erica Hunter (the indomitable Shelley Winters at her most gleefully unrestrained and over the top) encourages Sarah to use her potentially lethal psychic powers on the ANS sorority, specifically targeting snotty stuck-up bitch Jennifer Lawrence (deliciously played to catty perfection by Morgan Fairchild) as the key deserving recipient of Sarah's wrath. Adequately directed by Robert Day, with decent cinematography by Ric Waite, a spooky score by Johnny ("The Evil") Harris, a rousing fiery conclusion, and fine acting by a solid cast, this modest made-for-TV "Carrie" cash-in clone does the trick as a fun little fright feature. Lenz and Fairchild excel in juicy substantial roles, with nice supporting performances by Tony Bill as an affable teaching assistant, a pre-"Airplane!" Robert Hays as a friendly frat guy, and Tisa ("Some Call It Loving," "Zombie") Farrow as the frail, timid Mouse. Moreover, there's a pretty racy and surprising gay subtext to be discerned in the relationship between Sarah and Ms. Hunter, who appears to be a repressed lesbian with a lascivious interest in comely young ladies. My sole criticism: the gorgeous Kay Lenz is rather miscast as a character who's supposed to be a frumpy and unattractive plain Jane wallflower. That minor quibble aside, this nifty flick overall rates as a most entertaining item.