Initiation Director On Re-Inventing The Slasher For The Insta Age
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John Berardo, director and co-writer of the new film
Initiation, which releases in theaters, on-demand, and on digital May 7th.
In the conversation, Berardo said in the making of the film he was grappling with how to do a college-set slasher film while meeting several challenges. First, how would a film like
Scream change in an age when every character carries a smartphone and shares their every move? And second, can a slasher thrill without adopting the exploitative undercurrents of its classic '70s and '80s films? A lot of the answer spins around the perspective of the film– there's definitely toxic masculinity on display in a story that involves frat bros tagging girls on Instagram with a "slut" mark, but the toxicity itself is under indictment in this slasher from the start.