Satan's School for Girls (1973)

With a rather low score of 5.1 and a silly title, I expected "Satan's School for Girls" to be a lousy film. However, this made for TV picture actually hols up pretty well and I have no idea why its score is this low. In fact, I strongly suspect that this film was the inspiration for the Dario Argento classic "Suspiria".When the film begins, Martha is on the run...being pursued by some unseen enemy. She eventually makes it to her sister's home but when Elizabeth arrives home, she finds Martha dead and hanging in the house! Martha had never been suicidal and despite the police ruling it a suicide, she decides to investigate. The trail leads to a weird 'girls' school (many of the actresses are 23-30) where there is a very strange sense of foreboding and some rather weird dealings. What is going on here?!In many ways, it reminds me of "Suspiria". Both are set at a women's school and both have a great sense of foreboding instead of actually scary stuff happening most of the time. Both lead to similar finales as well. Plus, if you see it, you get to see "Charlie's Angels" stars of the future, Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd, as two of the girls enrolled in this bizarro school. Worth seeing.

Satan's School for Girls starts as Martha Sayers (Terry Lumley) arrives at her sister Elizabeth's (Pamela Franklin) house looking for her, Elizabeth is out but the gardener lets her in but soon hears screams coming from inside. Elizabeth & the police arrive & the cops break the door down to find Martha dead, having seemingly committed suicide by hanging herself. Elizabeth refuses to accept the suicide theory & since her sister Martha's time at the Salem Academy for the Performing Arts is rather vague she decides to enroll at the Academy herself & play detective in order to find out the truth behind her sister's death. Elizabeth befriends several girls & starts asking questions, then some of her classmates also turn up dead having apparently committed suicide which Elizabeth refuses to believe is a coincidence. Elizabeth discovers some dark past secrets about the Academy & it's dark cellar that involve the occult & Satanism as no-one is quite what they seem...Originally broadcast on the 19th September during 1973 on the ABC channel in the US & subsequently released on various budget DVD editions this has a great title but unfortunately not much of a film to back it up, directed by David Lowell Rich this has one or two good moments & passes the time I suppose but overall I didn't think that much of it. The bland & rather routine script takes itself very seriously & is more of a creepy mystery thriller with supernatural aspects but the title, the one thing that may draw you to this in the first place, gives away the films big secret! To be fair the twist is fairly well sign posted, the school is called the Salem Academy, stories of Witches being burnt at the stake in the cellar & various pupils turning up dead hint at something Satanic anyway so there's no great surprises when everything is revealed at the end. Actually when I said everything is revealed at the end I exaggerated, it's never revealed why the girls were killed or even if they were killed or it was suicide, who killed them & the mystery surrounding the locked doors where they find Martha hanging & just who the hell is Abigail? That old Headmistress keeps talking about Abigail for no apparent reason other than she's slightly crazy. Motives & actions are unclear while there's something about Mice stuck in a maze which might have meant something back in 1973 but now seems odd. The character's are alright, at only seventy three minutes long at least it's short & as I said it has a few decent moments.Since Satan's School for Girls was made for television there's no blood, gore, profanity or nudity so it has to be said the film doesn't really live up to it's fantastic title. Obviously filmed in the early 70's it's a product of it's time with some very ugly fashions & interior decorating but it probably looked good at the time. There's not many scares here, there's a scene in which a guy is drowned & there are some nicely shot scenes of girls wandering around the dark school & creepy cellar but nothing that will give anyone sleepless nights.Filmed in California future Charlie's Angels (1976) Kate Jackson & Cheryl Ladd appear here, the rest of the cast are alright but a bit bland like the film itself really.Satan's School for Girls is an OK way to pass seventy odd minutes but don't expect anything surprising, in fact the exploitative title gives the entire plot away & renders any attempts at mystery redundant. Amazingly this was remade as Satan's School for Girls (2000) for US television & again for the ABC channel.

That's the whole problem with this film. The opening scene is fantastically done with Terry Lumley as Martha Sayers on the run from some unseen but clearly deadly menace that it seems can get to her no matter where she runs and/or hides. It's too bad this level of suspense and thrills could not be maintained when it was star Pamela Franklin's turn (as Elizabeth Sayers) to be terrorized at the school for girls her sister had previously attended. Sure a nice effort is made by a very talented cast including Roy Thinnes, Kate Jackson, Jamie-Smith Jackson and Lloyd Bochner to keep the excitement going but in the end this falters and loses that hard edge it had when it opened. Perhaps some of this is the fault of the limitations inherent in this appearing on television in the 1970s but honestly I feel the real reason is that they reveal too much in terms of clues and visuals making the previously terrifying and mysterious menace seem much less threatening when it is finally revealed, in fact it proves somewhat anticlimactic.

Can someone take on the challenge of restoring and preserving all those 'made for TV' movies from the 60's and 70's? Here we have a curious masterpiece... a young woman goes snooping at a spooky American private girls' school in 1973, and gets more than she bargained for.Pamela Franklin plays like a prototype Winona Ryder, short and short-haired amidst the tall, long-haired 'California' girls. Having spent much of her career playing skewed or disturbed British girls, here she is the 'straight' heroine, years before all those current Britishers took on the dialogue coach.She confronts not one but TWO Jacksons, Kate and Jamie Smith-. Both were striking and imposing, both tall and long-haired... and when contrasted with poor Cheryl Stoppelmoor, both quite fascinating. Jamie is quite captivating playing the freaked and frightened Debbie. Kate is a mess of contradictions - beautiful yet straight-laced (check the night-gowns - Jamie sports a slinky red number, Kate is buttoned up in high neck and frills)... one Jackson sadly retired (as did Franklin - why?), the other unwisely shyed away from unsympathetic roles and found fame as a glam' detective (in polo-necks and neck-covering scarves).Ultimately not the best entry in 1973's TV movie offerings, yet in the 21st century it's worth a look for the fantastic casting choices!