The Initiation of Sarah appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.33:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This became a pretty good image for a late 1970s TV movie.
Sharpness usually worked well. A few slightly soft shots materialized, but the majority of the flick appeared accurate and concise.
No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. Light grain implied no egregious use of noise reduction, and print flaws remained modest. I saw a handful of small marks, but these didn’t create prominent distractions.
Colors tended toward an earthy feel and they came across well. The hues seemed natural and well-represented.
Blacks came across as deep and dark, while shadows usually seemed fairly smooth. Some day for night shots brought murky visuals, but those inevitably stemmed from the source. Ultimately, the presentation brought a pleasant surprise, as I didn’t expect much from a 44-year-old TV movie.
On the other hand, the DTS-HD MA monaural mix of Initiation felt wholly ordinary for its era. That didn’t seem like a bad thing, but it meant no one should expect much from the track.
Dialogue sounded reasonably natural. Speech could come across as a little reedy, but the lines remained intelligible and without edginess or other issues.
Music and effects came across as acceptably clear but no better. They could sound a bit shrill and favored high-end, but they didn’t suffer from obvious distortion. Ultimately, this became an adequate soundtrack for an older TV film.
As we shift to extras, we open with an audio commentary from film historian Amanda Reyes. She provides a running, screen-specific view of story and characters, cast and crew, various production areas, other genre films of the era and some connected domains.
Reyes delves into a lot of useful topics, and she gives us quirky facts like what TV competition Initiation faced and how it fared in the ratings. Reyes turns this into a solid track.
Some video features follow, and Welcome to Hell Week goes for 16 minutes, 33 seconds. It offers comments from critic Stacie Ponder and Queer Horror programmer Anthony Hudson.
“Week” looks at the movie “through a queer feminist lens”, which sounds like a potentially intriguing perspective. It seems like an unusual way to interpret the film.
Instead, Ponder and Hudson simply provide film-related basics from a campy POV. Though they briefly touch on the movie’s gay themes, there’s really no attempt to deliver a serious interpretation of the flick.
This means Ponder and Hudson just throw out catty remarks about the movie. Maybe some will find it amusing, but it seems like a tedious waste of time, as we get no actual insights or wit.
Cracks in the Sisterhood fills 14 minutes, 48 seconds with notes from film critic/historian Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. She discusses the movie from the perspective of “second wave feminism”.
Though not the most fascinating chat, she does give us some good insights. At least Heller-Nicholas provides a lot more interpretation than Ponder and Hudson do.
Next comes The Intimations of Sarah, a 16-minute, 19-second program with film critic Samantha McLaren. She looks at the movie in terms of genre, themes and various concepts. McLaren does the job we didn’t get from Ponder and Hudson to make this an informative piece.
Finally, The Initiation of Tom spans eight minutes, 58 seconds and brings remarks from story writer Tom Holland. He covers his career and involvement with Initiation during this short but interesting reel.
An Image Gallery includes a whopping six stills, five of which look like nothing more than fuzzy screenshots from a VHS copy of the movie. The sixth shows the movie’s misleading advertisement. Other than the last element, this becomes a waste of time.
While The Initiation of Sarah appears to exist solely as a TV movie ripoff of Carrie, it nonetheless manages to work fairly well. It does enough to separate it from Stephen King that it never feels like a shameless copycat, and a good lead performance from Kay Lenz adds value. The Blu-ray comes with better than expected visuals, adequate audio and a mix of bonus materials. Nothing here dazzles, but Initiation delivers a moderately engaging tale.