This school specializes in students whose character is, shall we say, difficult.
It doesn't take a genius to know that something sinister is afoot in The House That Screamed, which takes place at an isolated boarding school for troubled girls between the ages of 15 and 21. (And no, it isn't Castle Anthrax, although the sexual tension there is just as palpable.) Written and directed by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, the 1969 film stars Lilli Palmer as the strict disciplinarian in charge and Cristina Galbó as the new arrival who's dropped off -- along with everything she owns -- by a "friend" of her mother's. While Galbó gets the lay of the land, so do we, watching as Palmer oversees the punishment that is meted out to one of her more rebellious charges and warns her sheltered son (John Moulder-Brown) against getting involved with any of them. That, of course, doesn't prevent him from befriending one of them (Maribel Martín), but when they arrange a secret meeting in the greenhouse and Martín is brutally murdered there, it becomes clear that not all of the girls who are said to have escaped in the last few months ever made it off the property.
In addition to Palmer, the students also have to watch out for head mean girl Mary Maude, who secretly runs things and delights in driving anyone who gets in her sights to the point of hysteria. A similar thing could be said for Serrador, who includes a shower scene but turns it into a wet nightie contest since Palmer is so repressed that she makes the girls get washed in their nightgowns (which, for the record, are not see-through, a fact that doesn't deter Brown, an inveterate peeping tom). By the time he gets around to revealing just who's behind all the hacking and slashing, the answer isn't much of a surprise, but the ending Serrador comes up with is still incredibly creepy.