From the start, Initiation (alternately spelled Init!ation, but, SEO aside, who has time for that nonsense?) wants to subvert expectations of what a sorority/fraternity stalk and slash could be. It opens with a bunch of social media posts (#ThirstTraps!) as the camera trails down a frat house hallway, girls screaming and running. What is initially established as the traditional cold open starring sorority sisters being chased by a killer is quickly deflated as the screaming turns to laughter and water gun fights break out.

Immediately, Initiation establishes the difference between the fraternity brotherhood and sorority sisterhood, as the camera goes into the basement where the brothers, including Olympic hopeful Wes (Froy Gutierrez), initiate members into their fraternity and talk about putting exclamation points on social media posts of women who put out. In their own words, “tag the hoes to protect the bros.”

Lovely.

Meanwhile, upstairs Wes’s actual sister Ellery (Linday LaVenchy, also a co-writer of the film) sets a much different tone for her sorority sisters. “Find your big and little,” their refrain goes, “don’t leave the house tonight without checking in with your buddy.” As the party rages, the social media posts flash up on the screen in nice stylistic flourishes. #WhitonCollege. #Homecoming. Later in the evening, Ellery goes looking for one of her sisters named Kylie (Isabella Gomez) and finds her passed out in a room with two frat boys. One of them is Beau (Gattlin Griffith), who runs the frat.

The other is her brother, Wes.

The next day, Ellery discovers that Wes has tagged her and Kylie on Instagram with an exclamation mark and Kylie isn’t exactly sure what happened the night before, but she thinks something did. Not only that, “it sounded a lot like last year with that girl.” Ellery snaps into action and tracks down her brother, flicking off Beau on the way. And immediately, the tension is high between the two, with Wes saying Beau posted the picture and Ellery asking why he’s being such an asshole.

Throughout the day, Kylie has vivid flashbacks to the night as it slowly starts coming back while a fellow swimmer named Malik (Patrick R. Walker) tries to confront Wes on his drinking habits bringing down the swim team. And Ellery uses her lab access to run DNA tests to confirm her suspicions that her brother might have assaulted Kylie. All of this happens in the first act, which situates Initiation as more of a college drama surrounding the rape culture that exists within frats.

But then one of the frat members ends up killed...drilled to one of the doors in the frat house via a power drill. The murder opens the story up and introduces a myriad of characters, like the overly militarized officer Rico Martinez (Jon Huertas) investigating the killing, the hand-wringing chancellor Bruce Van Horn (Lochlyn Munro) and Ellery’s lab associate Tyler (Maxwell Hamilton), who not-so-secretly harbors an interest in Ellery.

From a narrative perspective, the script by director John Berardo, Brian Frage and Lindsay LaVanchy is slightly muddled as it attempts to weave together a poignant story about assault and the ties between blood family and Greek family while still trying to be an effective slasher. Stylistically, Initiation looks fantastic and DP Jonathan Pope camerawork is assured. The script also does a mostly good job of introducing red herrings and exploring how dangerous campus life is, without the threat of a serial killer on the loose.

More compelling is the way the film flips the script on the victims, as most of the victims are men, who are represented in various states of undress. The first kill, in particular, includes a shower scene of the man, who then walks around the frat house with a towel cinched around his waist. It’s a smart inversion of the sorority slasher a film like Initiation would typically showcase. The male body, in particular, seems to be objectified similarly to the way the female body was in the slasher heyday.

Unfortunately, the motive becomes readily apparent even though the killer’s reveal somewhat surprised. The acting, meanwhile, and characterizations felt mostly one note, though LaVanchy turns out an authentic performance of grief and determination that carries the film. Initiation’s attempt to modernize the slasher mostly works through its central mystery and socially conscious exploration of Greek Life.

While the why isn’t difficult to ascertain, the way the finale doubles down on the tragedy of the events makes Initiation a decent new addition in the slasher subgenre.