Welcome to Satan’s After-School Special
There’s a certain kitschy charm to the made-for-TV horror movie boom of the 1970s — a time when network television attempted to scare you silly before your bedtime, provided the FCC didn’t get there first. Into this cultural cauldron bubbled Satan’s School for Girls, a prime-time curiosity produced by none other than Aaron Spelling, the man behind Dynasty, The Love Boat, and a world of suburban melodrama. Unfortunately, he left the horror out on the curb with the garbage.
This tepid thriller, broadcast in 1973, was hyped as one of the most “memorable” TV movies of the decade. But then again, so was the after-school special where the kid smoked one joint and leapt out a second-story window. Like that poor boy, Satan’s School for Girls starts with a fall and never gets up.
Satan, Please See Me After Class
The premise is promising in the way that all things with “Satan” in the title should be. A woman investigates her sister’s mysterious suicide and enrolls undercover in a mysterious girls’ school where things aren’t quite what they seem. It’s basically Nancy Drew vs. Beelzebub, only with less intelligence, fewer thrills, and more corduroy.
Pamela Franklin plays Elizabeth, the amateur sleuth who fakes a new identity to infiltrate the Salem Academy for Women. Immediately upon arrival, she encounters enough red flags to make the Communist Party jealous — students who scream in art class, strange basement rituals, inexplicably moody professors, and Kate Jackson looking like she just stepped off a Charlie perfume commercial.
There’s something delicious about the setup — a creepy school with locked doors, whispery staff, and girls who die suspiciously. Sadly, it’s all window dressing for a plot so slow it could’ve been outpaced by a substitute math teacher.
The Curriculum: Bad Acting and Witchy Warnings
The film is populated with a cast who all appear to be auditioning for better projects. Pamela Franklin does her best in the lead, alternating between disbelief and bland terror, but the script gives her nothing to work with. Roy Thinnes, as the secretly evil Dr. Clampett (spoiler alert: he’s Satan!), spends most of the movie sipping tea and wearing sweaters like the world’s least threatening cult leader.
Then there’s poor Lloyd Bochner as Professor Delacroix, a character who spends half his scenes shrieking like a hysterical mime before hurling himself through a window. It’s less “tragic downfall” and more “Wednesday night improv class breakdown.”
Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd, both pre-Charlie’s Angels, do what they can — and if the true horror of this movie is anything, it’s that they were wasted in something that feels like a rejected pilot from Dark Shadows fan fiction.
Pacing by Ambien, Plot by Ouija Board
This is horror that seems allergic to actual suspense. Things just happen in a sequence: a death, a scream, another death, a vague sense of dread, followed by a vaguely demonic faculty member giving a stern lecture about punctuality. It plays like someone strung together an old school fire drill and a junior college production of Rosemary’s Baby.
And what of Satan, you ask? Well, he’s mostly offscreen, presumably doing paperwork. When he finally reveals himself as Dr. Clampett (a name that inspires zero dread), we’re treated to a limp monologue and a flaming building. The climactic moment — where Clampett survives the blaze and disappears, leaving behind a scorch mark on the grass — is about as scary as burning a Pop-Tart.
Made for TV, and It Shows
To be fair, Satan’s School for Girls is a product of its time. It had to toe the line with network censors, meaning blood, nudity, and overt Satanic ritualism were out of the question. Unfortunately, so was suspense, atmosphere, or character motivation. What’s left is a half-hearted supernatural whodunit with all the edge of a substitute teacher’s stern warning.
The cinematography is flat, the music is cue-card ominous, and the script seems to have been written by someone whose idea of evil is forgetting to return library books. If you want to be truly terrified, look at the carpet in the headmistress’s office.
Final Grade: D+ (D for Devil, Plus some unintentional laughs)
For a film called Satan’s School for Girls, there’s shockingly little Satan, and far too much school. The plot limps along like a possessed tricycle, the scares are DOA, and the ending is more of a whimper than a bang. This isn’t horror, it’s detention — and even Satan wouldn’t bother showing up for roll call.
Stick with Suspiria if you want witches, or The Exorcist if you want the devil. This one deserves to stay locked in the cellar.
