Girls School Screamers
Celebrities murder each other for charity, young Calcuttans regret their vacation, a Scare a Day keeps the real fears at bay, and then there's something called Maggot Story Hour. This must be the Sunday Scaries!
To die——to really be dead——that must be glorious.
~ Dracula (1931)
It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and I am giving thanks to whomever uploaded the goopy and gory psychotronic 1992 aliens-a-go-go monsterpiece Lo Mau / The Cat (directed by master of cinema Lam Nai-Choi, best known for Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky and Erotic Ghost Story), as I now have it playing in the background while I spend a little time with you. Animal lovers beware! Will my next newsletter be about the chilling cats of horror? We’ll have to see.
This week I watched the 2014 film Fatal Frame, directed by Mari Asato and faintly inspired by the 2001 Tecmo PS2 video game of the same name. Instead of following a young woman as she wanders through a haunted mansion defending herself against terrifying ghosts by taking their photos with a supernaturally enhanced film camera, the film centres on a religious girls’ school beset with tragedy and loss, suppressed lesbian desires and long-buried secrets. As I wrote on Letterboxd: “Lyrical unsettling ASMR horror as repressed schoolgirls in a religious dormitory fall in love with, curse, haunt, swoon over and die for each other in an eerie labyrinthine conflation of Pulse and Picnic at Hanging Rock.” A treat! I couldn’t help but wonder as I watched, though: what is it about girl-school horrors and why do we love them so? Let’s take a look at some of the best films in this strange and wonderful subgenre.
We might as well just say it: Suspiria. How could I not? This 1977 supernatural shocker, directed by the legendary Dario Argento, has earned its reputation as a cacophonous blood-drenched nerve-shredding classic, with wide-eyed ingenue Jessica Harper, ‘that bitch of an American girl,’ sneaking through the corridors of a German ballet academy providing cover for a coven of witches (led by the doyennes of devilry Alida Valli and Joan Bennett). Have you seen it? Of course you have. Have you seen the controversial 2018 re-envisioning by Luca Guadagnino, starring Dakota Johnson, Mia Goth and Tilda Swinton x 3? Of course you have! Will you watch them again? You must! Helena Marcos commands it!
Another site to be thankful for is Tubi, currently bringing us the 1968 Mexican gothic Hasta el viento tiene miedo / Even the Wind is Afraid, a tremendous influence on Guillermo del Toro and an inspiration for his film The Devil’s Backbone. Directed by Carlos Enrique Taboada, undisputed king of Mexican horror, the all-girls boarding school in this classic comes with a haunted tower, once the site of a suicide, that the students are forbidden from exploring — so explore it they must! Stately and austere by modern standards, this unsettling film has a suffocating dread-filled atmosphere that remains effective even on the small screen.
One year later, in 1969, another girls’ school shocker was released, the surprisingly gruesome Spanish chiller La Residencia / The House that Screamed, which can also be found on Tubi. Directed by Chicho Ibáñez Serrador, this gothic mystery set in 19th century France pits a new young student against a harsh headmistress and her strange sheltered son, and has all the classic elements you’d hope for plus some wild twists and turns that even today will rock you back in your seat.
The eerily evocative Korean haunted-school series Whispering Corridors is now, after a decade-long gap, on its sixth instalment. This is a rare all-bangers run, unusual in any genre but especially so in horror. Some are weaker, some are stronger, but there’s not a dud in the bunch. Start with the 1998 original, but feel free to follow with Memento Mori and Voice, the true highlights of the series. Each is distinct from the others but all serve as sensitive powerful portrayals of abuse and revenge, of young people struggling against the perils conformity and authority, and the relentless approach of adulthood and the compromises and disappointments that come with it.
Currently watching: Murder, betrayal and lies. My only love Claudia Winkleman is back with another hair-raising season of The Traitors UK. This time it’s a Celebrity Traitors season, which tend to be weaker as the stakes never feel quite as high and the risks never as real, but it is a much better cast than I could have hoped for, including Jonathan Ross, Stephen Fry, Paloma Faith, Charlotte Church, Cat Burns, Celia Imrie, Tom Daley, and show-stealer Alan Carr who may just walk away with everything. If you have never watched it, this is a great entry into the franchise.
Cool Story, Bro: Free to read for the first time, a tight tense story by Indrapramit Das titled Here Comes Your Man (first published in Ellen Datlow’s 2022 anthology Screams From The Dark), about a young Calcuttan couple whose weekend trip to Santiniketan turns into a nightmare.
This Week in Horror: Longtime favourite source of online classes, book groups and author visits, Romancing the Gothic is running a Scare a Day challenge for October, with a different short story or poem posted every day throughout the month. It’s not too late to get caught up on what is turning out to be a cornucopia of dark delights.
I will be off again next weekend, this time to Can*Con, Ottawa’s science fiction, fantasy and horror literature convention, where Corinne and I will be on one panel together and numerous others individually. If you are in the area, come say hi! Guests of Honour this year are Kate Heartfield, Stephen Kotowych and Premee Mohamed. My schedule peaks early on Friday with something called Maggot Story Hour. I can’t wait!
And that’s it for this week. Until next time, remember: “Susie... Sarah... I once read that names which begin with the letter 'S' are the names of SNAKES! Sssss! Ssssss!”
Help me. Help me be human.
~ The Fly (1986)