The House That Screamed

The nineteenth century, the south of France. There is a boarding school for girls whose families consider them troublesome. Madame Fourneau runs it by hard rules: letters are read, going out is forbidden, and the punishments are physical. The girls have built a hierarchy of their own and the eldest rule the rest. Teresa arrives. Girls had disappeared from the school before; everyone says they ran away. The headmistress has a son who lives there, and she does not let him speak to any of the girls. Chicho Ibáñez Serrador directs. Lilli Palmer plays the headmistress. It is a Spanish production. The film is among the most cited works of Spanish horror and was shown abroad at the time. The fear it builds is not supernatural; the school's own order and closedness stand in for the threat. Its visual work stands out; the long corridors, the staircases and the framings through windows influenced later school horror films. It was made under censorship and what could not be shown directly is given by implication. The narrative criticises authority, which is open to an indirect political reading in the Spain of the period. Its ending is hard for the genre and comes without explanation. Who it is for: viewers who like classic European horror and thrillers built on atmosphere. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, the violence is implied, and the technical quality is old.