SATAN’S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS (1973)
Article #1601 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-2-2005
Posting Date: 12-30-2005
Directed by David Lowell Rich
Featuring Pamela Franklin, Kate Jackson, Lloyd Bochner

A woman enrolls in a school for women to find proof that the death of her sister was not a suicide.

For those attracted to this movie by the title (which seems to promise a certain amount of exploitation as well as horror), you should first be aware that this is an early-to-mid seventies TV movie that takes pains not to offend. And it doesn’t. Nor does it really engage the interest due to its terminal blandness. It makes a few attempts to scare, but after a woman is frightened by a wandering hobo and a handyman in the opening scenes, I pretty much came to the conclusion that the movie was just trying to be scary rather than actually being scary. The movie tries to be mysterious about the type of evil present in the school, but since the title gives it away, about the only mystery left is “Who is Satan?”, and practically every review I’ve read gives that away. It has a couple of good moments, in particular a scene in which a bevy of women with long poles prevent a professor from escaping from a pond and causing his death. This is mostly for people attracted by the cast of familiar names and faces, which also includes Roy Thinnes, Jo Van Fleet and Cheryl Ladd.