WEEKEND PASS (1984)

COMEDY, THRILLER: TWO FOR THE RUDE

Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - April 30, 1984

Author: JOE BALTAKE, Daily News Movie Reviewer

* "Weekend Pass." A comedy starring D.W. Brown, Peter Ellenstein, Chip McAllister and Patrick Hauser. Written and directed by Lawrence Bassoff. Photographed by Bryan England. Edited by Harry B. Miller III. Music by John Baer. Running Time: 92 minutes. A Crown-International release. In area theaters.

* "The Initiation." A thriller starring Vera Miles, Clu Gulager and Marilyn Kagen. Introducing Daphne Zuniga. Directed by Larry Stewart from a screenplay by Charles Pratt, Jr. Photographed by George Tiri. Music by Gabriel Black and Lance Ong. Running Time: 99 minutes. A New World release. In area theaters.

The precivilized nomads who are making movies these days - apparently movies for anyone seeking voluntary solitary confinement in movie houses - are back in action.

The culprits this week are Lawrence Bassoff, whose "Weekend Pass" gives the impression of having been made by a middle-aged alter boy dabbling in SIN, and Larry Stewart, the flesh-hungry type, if his film, "The Initiation," is any indication.

You couldn't come up with two more opposite films if you tried: "Weekend Pass" is as simple, creaky and, yes, innocent as "The Initiation" is convoluted, contemporary and evil. Seeing them both in one day - and back-to- back, no less - as I foolishly did makes for a most demoralizing movie outing.

On Friday, "Weekend Pass" was shown as part of an all-day preview with ''Where the Boys Are '84," and the 13-year-old intellectual who was sitting in front of me provided the best review of it when she flinched and dismissed this comedy about four gobs on leave in Los Angeles as "square." She preferred the sizzling "Where the Boys Are '84" (which, ironically, is about four gals on the loose in Fort Lauderdale).

Bassoff has integrated his film in the predictable way - one nerd (Peter Ellenstein), one black (Chip McAllister), one jock-type (Patrick Houser) and the staple stud (D.W. Brown) who, refreshingly enough, turns out to be the
cut-up of the group. The guys clearly have sex on the brains, but Bassoff
keeps tickling and teasing them and never really comes through for them - or us.

Much of the film is a tour of L.A., with the black character paying a visit to his ghetto home and feeling disillusioned, the stud trying out his stand-up style at a comedy club, the jock calling on an old flame and the nerd being turned into a pretzel by an avid Oriental masseuse.

All four guys, meanwhile, get to hang out at a strip joint and an aerobics class. Golly-gee! What fun. Did Bassoff actually think anyone would pay to see something like this?

Say what you will about the embarrassing naivete of "Weekend Pass," it is preferable to the inhuman gibberish of "The Initiation." This is a Freudian- slip-of-a- horror -film, far more complex than truly frightening.

A young college girl's initiation into a sorority is all tied up with ancient childhood fears about her mother and father and her mother's paramour. One of them was murdered, either the father or the paramour, and the other was incarcerated in an asylum. We never really know which is which, and
neither does Kelly (Daphne Zuniga).

Kelly, in fact, has such swift mood swings that she may in fact be two people. Or she may simply be schitzophrenic. Who knows? Who cares?

Anyway, on the night of Kelly's initiation - which is to take place in the vacated shopping mall owned by her mother (Vera Miles) - Mr. So-and-So escapes
from the asylum, and people start dropping like flies - or like bad actors.

Smack-dab in the middle of this bloody mess is a curiously introspective moment (I guess that it's Stewart's half-hearted way of exhibiting his sensitivity) in which one of Kelly's friends (the excellent Marilyn Kagen) tells about the time she was molested as a child. She is killed immediately after the confession, and by the end of the movie, just about everyone is dead.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Parental Guide: Both are rated R, "Weekend Pass" for its profane humor, ''The Initiation" for its violence and references to sex