Schoolgirl Spooky!
By Kristin Battestella
Ah, young love, coming of age, high
school, sorority parties! These aren't such fond memories for the
past and present students in this trio of international girl horrors
tackling frights, naughty innuendo, the supernatural, and killers on
the loose. You know, the usual.
The Falling –
Game
of Thrones'
Maisie Williams leads a group of hysterical English schoolgirls in
this 2014 period mystery complete with creepy folk tunes, beautiful
landscapes, and old time school bells. The similarities with Picnic
at Hanging Rock are
also apparent with latent BFFs, a budding blonde, the awkward
brunette, the chubby girl playing an instrument, and a science girl
in glasses. They sit outside with umbrellas with their pretty
teacher, swans, and stopped watches while resentful older crones roll
their eyes, and its discomforting to see virgin girls in pigtails
discuss orgasms and solving one's pregnancy problems via spells,
knitting needles, and a medical book – with icky tips from your
brother, too. Maisie's Lydia talks sophisticated but remains a little
girl hiding in a nursery cupboard perhaps unaware of why she wants
her pretty friend to herself. She browbeats her smoking, washed up
mother – the unrecognizable Maxine Peake (Silk)
– and is too full of herself to consider her mother's reasons.
There should have been more of the adult perspectives bolstering the
school and religious structure against the natural, tree loving girls
growing up too soon. These teens are trying to be shocking,
rebellious, and acting out vicariously – regrets, sexual activity,
unhealthy obsessions, and experimentation escalate into fainting fits
and faux orgasmic hysteria. Unfortunately, unnecessary music video
styled transitions, subliminal strobe inserts, and modern meta
interference detract from the repression and grief while external
music and spinning cameras make the fainting spells laughable. Did
they practice falling? How many flopping on the floor takes were
there? Characters calmly step over the girls on the floor, and
bemusing “thud” closed captioning accents Lydia's falling and
taking everything off the table with her. The middle aged women have
a good laugh over these young kids thinking they are older and
misunderstood, and faculty debates on science and attention seeking
are much better – are the occult, local lay lines, nearby
supernatural trees to blame? Do you ostracize one or hospitalize the
entire class? Faking or follower questions layer the second half
alongside school consequences, perception versus reality, lesbian
whispers, and sexual violence. Although the medical testings feel
glossed over, the intercut eye twitching, body language, and question
and answer psychiatry suggest more – as do other shockers dropped
in the last ten minutes. Writer and director Carol Morley's (Dreams
of a Life)
long form narrative does get away from itself, and this try hard
can't always be taken seriously. However, this tale both glorifies
femininity and vilifies budding women and the spinster the way
society both pedestals and shames, adding enough food for thought to
some of the inadvertent chuckles.
The House on Sorority Row
– Pranks and murders on campus, oh my! This 1983 cult slasher opens
with a risky pregnancy, pulsing heartbeats, and emergency scalpels
before trading the stormy past and blue patinas for some sunny
eighties happiness. Everything is so young, beautiful, and
babealicious when you graduate from college! It's still fun to see
retro cars or rad vans, huge cameras, records, waterbeds, fluorescent
fashions, and colorful wallpaper – though there's too much teal and
pink for my tastes. Coiffed older women also look quite forties with
floppy satin bow shirts and stockings, visually creating a
generational divide to represent the living in the past mentalities
or old fashioned thinking – they'll be no goodbye parties, beer, or
horny and useless frat boys in this house! While there is no chubby
gal with glasses, there are some ugly guys used for humor and
splatter, and in true eighties horror movie requirement, there is a
girl too old to be in pigtails alongside the sex and boobs. Why don't
these graduated girls just leave instead of pranking the old lady
that wants them to abide the rules of her house? Not to mention they
are some pretty poor party hosts – one should always wait to kill
somebody till after the festivities so arriving guest don't interfere
in your getting rid of the body blundering. Creaking rocking chairs,
nursery rhyme music, creepy jester dolls, and a nasty looking cane
perfect for bludgeoning accent the good girl versus bad girl slaps,
gun play, and deserved turnabouts. Granted, there are some chuckles
thanks to stupid actions, some identity of the murderer obviousness,
and an overall tameness on what is now a cliché genre formula.
Perhaps the one by one kills are predictable – there's a dame alone
in the dark basement, because, of course – however the suspense,
shadows, and unseen killer editing are well done. The primary
location intensifies the bathroom traps, warped mothering, and well
paced pursuits while surprise color, angles, and apparitions add to
the solid final act. Although the gore isn't elaborate for the sake
of it, there are some bloody, creative moments, and this fun, half a
million dollar ninety minutes does everything it sets out to do
without resorting to today's in your face spectacle.
Picnic at Hanging Rock – The
Criterion blu-ray has almost two hours more features discussing this
1975 Australian spooky drama based on the Joan Lindsay novel about
schoolgirls gone missing in 1900. The innocent white lace and
valentine wishes are soon to be ill foreboding thanks to eerie music
and budding whispers. These girls tighten each others corsets in
parallel shots with mirrors, BFF poetry, latent suggestions, and
repression abound. The seventies breezy fits the late Victoria
ruffles, hats, and parasols – gloves are permitted to be removed
for this excursion! Capable Aussie help and buttoned up British elite
mark a strong class divide, and pretty mountain vistas, wild
vegetation, and rocky mazes contrast the lovely yet out of place
English manor. Straightforward, controlled camerawork captures the
society at home, but surreal, swooning outdoor panoramas invoke
Bermuda Triangle suggestions alongside dreamy voiceovers, rolling
cloud rumbles, and red symbolism. Insects, reptiles, swans, disturbed
bird migrations, fickle horses, watches stopping at noon – the
metaphysical or transcendental signs imply something beyond mere
coming of age and sexual awakening. Trance like magnetic lures
radiating from the titular nooks and crannies stir these Gibson Girl
naps, and askew slow motion reflects this layered beauty meets
danger. The enchanting blonde, the nerdy girl with glasses, an
awkward brunette, and the complaining chubby girl – standard horror
stereotypes today – all talk as if they are up to something naughty
with self-aware doomed to die chats before scandalously removing
their shoes and stockings. A flirty French teacher, the severe math
teacher in red reciting lava flow build up and volcano rising
statistics with an uncomfortable kinky – we don't see what happens.
However, hearing the screams and watching the resulting hysterics
make it creepier. Incomplete searches, Victorian speculation, and
unreliable witnesses muddle the investigation, but most importantly,
doctors assure the survivors are still chaste. Such delicate
interrogations and polite society leave newspapers and angry
townsfolk wondering while the school faces its own fallout with
withdrawals, unpaid terms, drinking, and guilt. Yes, there's some
artistic license with absent families, poor forensics, and missing
evidence ignored. Surprising connections, however, and good twists in
the final forty minutes keep this damn disturbing – and it's all
done without gore or effects. The innate power of suggestion, period
restraints, and our own social expectations drum up all kinds of
unknown possibilities, and I don't know how anyone doesn't consider
this a horror movie.
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