Cinema ABC "Rewind"- Session 213: The House that Screamed
The House that Screamed (from the "Pure Terror" DVD collection)
(1969, Narciso Ibanez Serrador)
Teresa is being dropped off at a girl’s boarding school in the wooded middle-of-nowhere, France. She soon discovers the Principal and owner, Lilli Palmer, is quite the dictator, favoring an iron fist for discipline. She soon also discovers that there are more dreadful secrets lurking in the shadows as one by one, the girls who were believed to have ‘run away’ are slowly believed to have been murdered.
This had a pretty good shot at being a decent thriller had it not been for the fact that my version was severely cut and edited. While the dubbing overall was fair, the cuts left some of the plot points up to the viewers imagination. At times, you didn’t know if you just missed something, if people were lying or telling the truth . . . it became confusing. But the overall story was still mostly intact. And while the reveal of the killer wasn’t that shocking, the ending was. Add to that a truly inspired slow motion montage murder scene with light, soothing music and there’s still a lot to like in this movie, despite the edits.
At a dreadfully short 76 minutes, this brings my schooling to: 2w:1d:16h:12m.
(1969, Narciso Ibanez Serrador)
Teresa is being dropped off at a girl’s boarding school in the wooded middle-of-nowhere, France. She soon discovers the Principal and owner, Lilli Palmer, is quite the dictator, favoring an iron fist for discipline. She soon also discovers that there are more dreadful secrets lurking in the shadows as one by one, the girls who were believed to have ‘run away’ are slowly believed to have been murdered.
This had a pretty good shot at being a decent thriller had it not been for the fact that my version was severely cut and edited. While the dubbing overall was fair, the cuts left some of the plot points up to the viewers imagination. At times, you didn’t know if you just missed something, if people were lying or telling the truth . . . it became confusing. But the overall story was still mostly intact. And while the reveal of the killer wasn’t that shocking, the ending was. Add to that a truly inspired slow motion montage murder scene with light, soothing music and there’s still a lot to like in this movie, despite the edits.
At a dreadfully short 76 minutes, this brings my schooling to: 2w:1d:16h:12m.