La residencia (The House That Screamed)
Directed by Narciso Ibañez Serrador
Written by Narciso Ibañez Serrador; story by Juan Tebar
1969/Spain
IMDb link
First viewing/Amazon Prime (Shout Factory channel)
They Shoot Zombies, Don’t They
Sra. Fourneau: This school specializes in students whose character is, um, shall we say, um, difficult, and there are a few among them who, in spite of their youth, have not exactly led exemplary lives. In order to bring them back to the right path, I must run this establishment with a firm hand.
Director Narcisco Ibanez Serrador turns the classic camp “slasher in a girls boarding school” premise into a pretty darn solid thriller.
The setting is 19th Century France. Sra. Fourneau (Lili Palmer) rules an isolated girls boarding school with an iron hand with the assistance of sadistic senior student Irene, who is a mean hand with the whip. She carries motherly love for her son Luis to almost incestuous extremes. Bastard orphan new girl Therese begins seeing Luis secretly. Several girls run away, never to be seen again. Both these factors only cause the butch headmistress to further tighten her grip.
Lili Palmer is excellent and the production values are top notch. The movie takes all the usual titillating tropes of this particular genre of horror to the max. It manages to pull off a scary thriller that is more than a guilty pleasure by taking each element sereiously. I watched this in a dubbed version with numerous commercial interruptions from “Elvira”, a longtime US late night movie host. I enjoyed it and imagine it would be even better in the original Spanish version.
