Satan's School for Girls (1973)

So much average

Simply A Masterpiece

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

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 (1973)** (out of 4) Made-for-TV flick about Elizabeth Sayers (Pamela Franklin), a woman who checks herself into a college under a fake name after the suicide of her sister. Elizabeth doesn't believe her sister would kill herself so she goes to the college to see what's really going on and sure enough other girls have killed themselves or is something much darker going on? Yes, the title pretty much tells you what's going on in this Aaron Spelling flick that has some good performances and nice atmosphere but very little else. At 78-minutes the film seems twice as long and the main reason why is that every single scene just keeps dragging on and on to the point where you simply stop caring about what's going on. It also doesn't help that the director seems to think that you're going to come to the film scared and that he doesn't need to do anything except having strange looking actors playing male parts and have scary music constantly going on the soundtrack. Just check out the opening scene where we get a couple males who just look creepy and yet this is supposed to make us scared. This trick happens throughout the movie as every male role is either played by an elderly man made to seem weird or of course there's the one good looking guy and you know what that means. There's a nice music score here but it gets played to death so much that you really can't help but roll your eyes and wish someone would hit the pause button. Even though it's not creepy at all, the film at least contains some nice atmosphere but I've found most TV movies from this era, no matter how bad they are, to have this one quality. Another good thing are the performances with Franklin doing a nice job in the lead role. The supporting cast includes strong performances by Jo Van Fleet and Kate Jackson as well as a very good turn by Cheryl Ladd in an early role. SATAN'S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS offers very few shocks, no scares and there's really not too much going for it. In a decade full of Satanic films you can find much better ones to spend your night with.

Another of those flicks inspired by the success of 'Rosemary's Baby'. When that movie came out, the nation developed an obsession or preoccupation with the devil or the whole concept of evil in general. I even remember seeing a '60 Minutes' segment at that tender age which reported that while many people were less religious or didn't believe in God, many others believed in the Devil. At least, that was the synopsis given by Mike Wallace's opening segment voice-over.'Satan's School For Girls' is one of those ABC titles that can be easily found today compared to, say, 'The Screaming Woman'. Sometimes you pick up a bit of trivia by watching these old television movies. When I watched it a few years ago, I didn't realize that Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd, who was using her old surname of Stoppelmoor, had acted together before 'Charlie's Angels'. Kate Jackson is superb in her role as the level-headed, innocent Roberta, who appears to be the only person Elizabeth can trust. I have a problem with the ending, though, which gives the viewer the impression that Roy Thinnes, as the cult leader, not only has special powers but isn't of this world at all. But hey, it's a movie about the devil, black magic, satanism and the disturbing reality that good doesn't always win - at least, not totally. That was another thing which became common in entertainment: allowing evil to win. I guess this was a product of the nation's loss of innocence and disillusionment with events like the Kennedy and King assassinations, Vietnam, and the Watergate scandal. We all sort of 'grew up fast' after those events.

Don't be fooled by the title or the sanguine cover art. This is a moderately suspenseful movie that probably wouldn't make a 10-year-old lose any sleep. As a result, it's not a bad "spooky" movie to watch with the family. Although it's unrated, it would be at most PG for some mild violence. The only people who might be offended by this would be those who find the whole concept of witches and devil worshipers offensive and they probably aren't looking at this comment anyway. It's also not a particularly outstanding film and the main attraction, I think is the chance to see Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd pre-Charlie's Angels. I doubt I'll remember anything about this movie a year from now.