Great Horror Movie: La Residencia (Finishing School)

The Movie: La Residencia/aka Finishing School/aka The House That Screamed (1969)

Directed by: Narciso Ibanez Serrador.

Starring: Lilli Palmer as the Headmistress, Madame Fourneau; John Moulder-Brown as her son Luis; Cristina Galbo as Teresa, the new girl; and Mary Maude as Irene, the sadistic trustie.

A new girl, Teresa, shows up at a dreary French boarding school run by the authoritarian Madame Fourneau. Even during the first hours of her stay, things are weird - she keeps feeling like she's being watched. Things get no better when she finds out what the girls get up to in the woodshed with the delivery man, and has run-ins with the sadistic Irene, who operates the dark underbelly of the school. But soon girls are turning up missing, and there is a murderous madman on the loose. Will Teresa escape the school with her life?

At first I thought this was going to be an Italian exploitation film (boarding school girls! Sexual liaisons! Lesbian headmistresses! Murder!) and yeah, mostly I got it for the scantily-clad foreign girls (what? I'm human). Well, I was completely wrong...it wasn't Italian! Joke's on me!

But I digress...as the movie unfolded - and it does unfold - I began to realize that the titillation, though definitely up front, is no more than a misdirection. You're tricked by it into expecting some climactic girl-on-girl action as the tension ramps up, only to realize that, underneath this, the real tension of the story has been sneaking up on you. Who's the killer? Madame Fourneau? The sociopathic Irene? The creepy boiler-room guy? You might even figure out who it is halfway through the movie, only to be misdirected not once but twice, even three times. Nobody's motivations are clear, the film's point of view switches around masterfully, and at the end of it I found myself - much to my surprise - actually muttering "Don't stop! Look out! Keep going!" to the main character, knowing the killer was slowly gaining on her.

Now, I'm not much of a horror movie buff - I don't really have the stomach for gorefests, jump-scares annoy me, and torture-porn just makes me kind of sad and angry (La Residencia is pretty tame, despite the themes). But I know excellent storytelling when I see it. The pacing is near-perfect. The characters, though roughly-sketched, get their hooks into you quickly: you desperately want Teresa to get out, and you really, really hate Irene - until the end, when you end up rooting for her. It's a rare movie that can take an evil little bitch and turn her into the heroine.

And the ending...whew! Yes, you jaded horror buffs, I know you've seen it all before, blah blah blah; but the ending was seriously, satisfyingly creepy. Even if you chanced to figure out what was happening, it still leaves you with a sick smile. If only every horror movie could do that. La Residencia was, according to my (woefully inadequate) research, quite an influential film both in Europe and in the US.

I highly recommend this one: come for the boarding-school girls, stay for the tense, well-plotted thriller.

Rick Out!

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The Penguin

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