tek's rating: meh

The Initiation of Sarah (2006), on ABC Family
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This is a remake of a 1978 TV movie, which was a bit before my time (I was three), so I hadn't seen it before. Still, I watched it online after watching this remake. Anyway, the main reason I wanted to see this movie is because Summer Glau is in it. She plays Lindsey Goodwin, though the movie focuses on her fraternal (or sororal) twin, Sarah (Mika Boorem). Their mother, Trina (Morgan Fairchild, who played Jennifer in the original movie), drives them to her alma mater, Temple Hill, where the girls are about to start college. Trina wants them to pledge her old sorority, Alpha Nu Gamma, which Lindsey is anxious to do. She's not really happy with her old life, so she wants to reinvent herself, and become popular. She also hopes Sarah will... be more normal. Strange things have always happened around her, like she has some kind of witchly power, though she can't control it. Sarah hopes this will change, too....

There is a professor of a mysticism class at Temple Hill, Dr. Eugenia Hunter (Jennifer Tilly), who is also the head of another sorority, Pi Epsilon Delta, which is an old rival of Alpha Nu, which is led by a girl named Chorinne (JoAnna Garcia). Both sororities practice magic, but they're different kinds... PED's comes from the earth, and Alpha Nu's comes from fire. Alpha Nu and its sisters, including a girl named Esme (Tessa Thompson), seem to be evil (though I don't think Dr. Hunter is all that innocent, either). Both sororities want Sarah to pledge with them, because apparently she is "the one." She's supposedly very powerful, and she'll be able to control her power once she's been initiated into one of the sororities... but Alpha Nu wants to sacrifice her to gain her power.

While Alpha Nu woos the eager Lindsey as bait for her sister, Dr. Hunter tells Sarah various secrets about Sarah herself, and her mother (there's an important twist there), and Alpha Nu, and whatnot. There's also a boy at school named Finn, who's interested in Sarah, though he doesn't know anything about all the occult stuff going on. And Alpha Nu will use him as bait, too. And there's a girl named Vita who is befriended by Sarah, who pledged PED. And um... I'm not really sure what else to say. There's a twist concerning Lindsey, towards the end, but I saw it coming. Anyway, the movie was okay, I guess.