Blanca Marsillach and Her Sweet Spanish Honey

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The House That Screamed (1969)

The Suspense is Sheer Torture in ... "The House That Screamed"

The House That Screamed

The House That Screamed or La Residencia is a gothic-y Spanish horror film by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, the same guy who directed Who Can Kill a Child?.  It's frequently compared to Italian supernatural horror/giallo master Dario Argento's Suspiria and I guess the two films have similarities in that they both take place at all-girls schools and have abusive headmistresses, but never once was I reminded of the Italian classic while watching this film.  The House That Screamed does have a Hammer horror feel to it though because of the dark, gothic atmosphere.

It's certainly not a bad film but it drags at times and doesn't really stand out as anything special among the many other dark, gothic, evil governess/headmistress films out there.  It has a few things going for it that make it worth watching, however.  The acting is great, and the sets and gloomy, claustrophobic atmosphere are really the heart and soul of this film, but it's the ending that I liked the best and I'm sure it shocked the hell out of  audiences back in 1969.  It's similar to Lucky McKee's May which came out 33 years later and if you've seen that movie I guess I've just ruined the ending of The House That Screamed for you.  My bad.  "So many pretty parts and no pretty wholes."

"Nice bloomers, bitch."

Teresa, a young woman with a sordid past, is brought to a finishing school where she is to be taught the skills crucial to landing and keeping a husband. The girls are all pretty much bitches and the headmistress is the bitchiest of them all.  Girls who do not adhere to the strict rules imposed at this school are sent to the "discipline chamber" where their attitudes are adjusted to the conformity desired by the bitchy headmistress.  There's also a lot of sexual tension and sometimes encounters amongst the girls and any man who is lucky enough to penetrate the walls of the school.  This includes the deliveryman and the headmistress's handsome but mentally slow son.  The creepy, overprotective mother won't let her precious son have anything to do with the girls at the school because they aren't good enough for him like mommy is.  She and her mentally incompetent boy also have some sort of incestuous thing going on which is never explicitly shown, but is obvious... and gross.   He has flings with the girls at the boarding school anyway including Teresa, and these girls start to get murdered one by one.  And just like the tagline of this film says, "only the killer knows why and how and who is next!"

It's a decent film, kinda slow but it has a good ending.


Violence Rating/Index: 2.5 out of 5
Booby Rating/Index: 1.5 out of 5

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Who Can Kill a Child? (1976)

They don't know it yet, but their vacation paradise will be a nightmare

Who Can Kill a Child?

This is another one of those movies that has 27 million different names.  These are just the English ones:

Who Can Kill a Child?
Island of Death
Death is Child's Play
Island of the Damned
Lucifer's Curse
The Killer's Playground
Trapped
Would You Kill a Child?

The film begins with several minutes of archival black and white footage of the horrors of war including statistics from these conflicts like the number of children that were killed, leaving me to wonder if I put the right movie in.  Then the story begins. 

While vacationing in Spain, a British couple decide to get away from the usual tourist spots and visit the small island of Almanzora.  Tom, played by Lewis Fiander (who also played the nosy neighbor in Hammer's Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde) visited the island when he was a kid and wants to see it again so he and his very pregnant wife Evelyn (Prunella Ransome) set out on a little dinghy.  But this isolated community is far from an idyllic island paradise and the couple notice that something isn't quite right as soon as they land.

The adults have all disappeared and the children are acting strangely.  Soon Tom and Evelyn witness a laughing little girl bludgeon an old man to death with his own cane.  The couple discovers that for some unknown reason, the children on the island have turned evil and are joyfully murdering all of the grown-ups.  It isn't long before the children turn their happy rage on these two outsiders and Tom and Evelyn must find a way to get off the island to save their own lives.

"Qué?"

I was a bit disappointed by this film but only because of my own preconceptions.  From what I had heard about Who Can Kill a Child? I was expecting shocking, gruesome violence.  Instead, there isn't a whole lot of bloodshed but rather a buildup of tension and dread over the course of the film that is finally released in the bloody final minutes (although much less bloody than I had imagined).  So it's not a failure of the film in any way, it's just that I was expecting more blood.  It is a great movie, don't get me wrong, it's just that it's more of a slow and suspenseful exploration of depravity rather than an overtly gruesome one. 

Violence Rating: 3 out of 5
Booby Rating:  1.5 out of 5

The Werewolf Vs. Vampire Woman (1971)

The Blood Flows Like Vintage Wine

The Werewolf Vs. Vampire Woman

I watched this film many years ago and quite enjoyed it but the quality of the VHS copy was so horrible that it detracted from the movie.  The Werewolf Vs. Vampire Woman is the original English title for this film but I recommend you track down a copy of the "recently" released DVD called Werewolf Shadow if you want the best version of this movie.  It's the same film but uncut, in widescreen and remastered by Anchor Bay.  Now onto the film.

The Werewolf Vs. Vampire Woman has a Hammer Horror feel to it and a werewolf that looks straight out of a Universal Pictures monster movie.  I like both of these things.

Our story begins as two doctors remove silver bullets from the body of a man during an autopsy while dismissing local werewolf legends as superstition.  The corpse returns to the land of the living once the silver is extracted, and escapes.  Later, two lovely young ladies are driving through the countryside to examine the tomb of an alleged vampire countess when they realize that they are lost and almost out of gas.  Luckily a local man, Daninsky, is nearby and invites them to his estate until his hired help can drive them to the distant village for gas in a day or two.  Once at the estate, the two girls are molested and/or physically assaulted by the man's psychotic sister.  But whatever, back to the main plot.

"I've seen the Samburu do this on the National Geographic channel."

Daninsky and the two girls hike to the tomb of the vampire countess and accidentally awaken her from her undead slumber when one of the girls cuts herself and drips blood into the mouth of the corpse.  The Countess soon gets to work draining the blood from the girls after they return to the estate and tries to turn them into undead bloodsuckers like herself.  However, Daninsky and one of the girls have fallen in love and he will do anything to protect her from "Satan's favorite mistress."  Oh, and I forgot to mention that he's the werewolf.

This is another tough call.  I liked this film but I'm not so sure others will.  The pacing is often slow and the effects are dated.  I guess if you are a fan of old school monster movies or like the style and atmosphere of Hammer horror films, you'll probably like The Werewolf Vs. Vampire Woman as well.

Violence Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Booby Rating: 3 out of 5

 
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