Somewhen, somewhere in the 19th century: 18 year old Teresa (Christina Galbó)
is sent to Madame Fourneau's (Lilli Palmer) all girls' boarding school, that
the good Madame runs more like a women's prison, eventually convicting the more
rebellious girls like Catherine (Pauline Challoner) to solitary confinement
& even a sound whipping. & Madame tries to keep the girls in line by
being in cahoots with one of them, Irene (Mary Maude), who has Madame's trust
& even the keys to the gate forbiddden to other girls.
But Madame has also a 16-year old son, Luis (John Moulder-Brown), whom she
desperately tries to keep away from what she thinks are bad girls, a bad
influence on the boy since he should have a girlfriend just like his mother ...
However, Luis always finds ways to sneak up on the girls to peep on them,
& one of them, Isabelle (Maribel Martín), is even his girlfriend. One day,
these 2 lovers decide to elope, but instead Isabelle is killed, but her corpse
never found, & Madame thinks she has made a successful escape.
Soon Luis befriends Teresa, as she has helped him out of a compromising
situation, but Irene learns about the affair, & decides to give the girl
some mental torture because of that - which Teresa soon can stand no longer,
& she decides to run away, but after bidding farewell to Luis, her throat
is slit. IRene, who has been following the girl, soonfinds her gone & only
traces of blood in her stead. When she however reports the thing to Madame
Fourneau'y, the woman stays a tad too calm & Irene grows increasingly
suspicious about the woman - so much, that the erstwhile allies soon become
enemies.
When Madame calls Irene to her office past bedtime though, Irene is taken
over by fear & decides to instead make an escape - however, soon Madame is
coming after her & she flees to the attic & hides. When Madame has
caught up with her, though, she finds the girl killed & horribly mutilated.
To little surprise it turns out her son was the psycho murderer who has needed
the girls for bodyparts out of which he wanted to make a girl that exactly
resembled his mother.
In a punchline that is better than the whole movie, he finally locks his mum
in with the stitched up woman so Madame could teach her how to behave ...
What might sound like a macabre horror movie in my synopsis actually plays
more like a period drama with socio-critical overtones about 19th century
boarding schools, more resembling Mädchen in Uniform from 1958 - in
which Lilli Palmer also starred in a slightly different role. The horror seems
to be just thrown in for the viewer's entertainment - since the rest of the
movie really is not that good - & the macabre ending comes totally
unheralded, & let's face it, it looks rather out of place in this movie, a
rather glossy production that offers in equal parts atmosphere & boredom
& takes itself way too seriously for its tried & true story.
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