When I read the superlatives thrown around for this movie by the viewers who rated it a 'ten', I have to wonder if I watched the same story. The set up for the film is okay, but considering that it's intent is to go for horror, the tension and paranoia that should have resulted within the walls of the boarding school remain absent when it's assumed that the girls we see murdered have simply run away. There seems to be a problem with editing as well, though I concede that might have been a problem with the version I watched. Chief among them was the claustrophobic scene in which young Luis (John Moulder Brown) gets trapped in the shaft overlooking the girls shower room. One minute he's there, and next we see him conversing with one of the students. Well excuse me, but how the heck did he get out? Someone had to free him, thereby letting in a key player on to his dirty little secret. And speaking of that shower scene, it might have been a good idea for the young ladies to remove their gowns while lathering up. That was just a major puzzlement for this viewer. And correct me if I'm wrong, but it seemed to me like that precocious and horny young Luis aged about five years between the time we first met him and the final scene in which he throws the long bomb to his Mom (Lilli Palmer),an effect I haven't seen before in a movie that runs about an hour and a half.

This film is a real puzzlement. It sets itself up to be a potentially good little thriller but I couldn't decipher a plot, only elements of a story with really no conflict, just a dark atmosphere with unhappy people. Dour school head mistress Lilli Palmer has no reason to be as dour and imperious as she is, although she is in charge of this student body which consists of mostly young women with noted disciplinary problems. One particular student is involved with her young son who locks himself in the grates between the boiler room and the girl's showers and can't get out. Several of the girls have supposedly run away, and a few others are part of Palmer's disciplinary team, holding one girl down as she gets a whipping. That's pretty much all there is as far as story, what little it is, more occasionally a few tense individual moments exposing the various secrets of the girls, structured with eerie music and sound effects over the dark photography. Yes, the scene with the young boy stuck is cringe worthy to those suffering from claustrophobia, and a last minute gruesome murder is also shocking. But I just expected more after an interesting set-up with the follow up a total let down.

Lilli Palmer owns and runs a school for wayward girls in France. Her absolute discipline has fostered a social order among the girls with rampant sex, lesbianism and torture the norm. Palmer also has an adolescent son (Moulder Brown) she tries to keep isolated from the young women lest he be tainted.

The film was created as a commercial film with the express purpose of breaking into the international market. The film was shot in English, making it the first Spanish film shot in this language. If this is true (as film histories claim),it is rather remarkable and makes the movie somewhat important despite the lack of support it has had over the years.

Whether the film has had a decent release in the States or not, I don't know. As near as I can tell, it was picked up by AIP, butchered, and then further butchered later on when it appeared as part of Elvira's show (and probably others). I feel like if this was released uncut with a new scan, the Spanish horror scene might get more respect.