Very well executed

Too much of everything

Absolutely the worst movie.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Satan ran the early 70s. I first learned about Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan as a child by reading the TV Guide Book of Lists. They asked him what the most Satanic TV shows were and he replied with a list that included so many of my favorite shows. It scared me as a twelve year old — could I be taken by devil worshippers and be made to celebrate the Black Mass?Made for TV movies reflected the Satanic bent of the early 70s. This Aaron Spelling produced, David Lowell Rich (Eye of the Cat, Airport 79 – The Concorde) directed affair brings the devil to the boarding school, along with plenty of attractive girls ready to give their souls to the Son of the Morning Star.Martha Sayers is running from a mysterious stranger who may or may not be related to Torgo from Manos: the Hands of Fate. She locks herself in her sister Elizabeth's (Pamela Franklin, Necromancy, The Legend of Hell House, The Food of the Gods) house and hangs herself. Of course, the police just think it's a suicide. But we know better — The Salem Academy for Women had to have something to do with it. Martha's roommate tells Elizabeth to stay away, but she is having none of it.She takes the name of Elizabeth Morgan and enrolls at the school where she's welcomed by Roberta (Kate Jackson!), Jody Keller (Cherly Ladd!) and Debbie Jones (Jamie Smith-Jackson from Go Ask Alice, who is married to Michael Ontkean, Sheriff Harry S. Truman from Twin Peaks). The fact that Alice and two of Charlie's Angels (Sabrina Duncan and Kris Munroe, I'll have you know) playing devils in a movie thrills me to no end. And throw in Alice and we have a movie!Read more at http://bit.ly/2yALwjp

Poor Terry Lumley. Driving around in a frantic state, trying to reach her sister by phone, and feeling like she's being stalked like some rat caught in a trap with a cat lurking nearby. Approached by some unseen creature of darkness, she begins to scream, and all of a sudden, she turns into what looks like a Dali painting, her thin face becoming as equally horrific as the fate she is about to meet. This sets up the rest of this somewhat silly 1970's T.V. movie which has a cult following and includes such familiar faces as Pamela Franklin (as the poor victim's sister), Kate Jackson (as a student who becomes Franklin's pal when she enrolls to try and find out what happened to her sister), Roy Thinnes (as a new wave thinker and art professor), Lloyd Bochner (as another eccentric professor), and in a rather campy part, Oscar Winner Joy Van Fleet as the headmistress nicknamed "The Dragon Lady". Van Fleet isn't exactly a dragon lady; In fact, she seems an unwilling participant in the mayhem and macabre goings on, and having given a few camp performances, she is far from as melodramatic as some of those past performances. Certainly, something terrible is going on in the school as half a dozen girls are found dead in the sinister looking basement, and nobody can figure out why, whether it was suicide or murder, and if murder, what kind of motive lead to it. To be honest, I frankly found it dull, and having seen it years ago at a more impressionable age, it doesn't hold up all that well. Many T.V. movies did better jobs with equally horrific tales, most memorably "The Devil's Daughter" and "The Initiation of Sarah", but frankly, they are all rip-offs of "Rosemary's Baby".

Following the mysterious suicide of her sister, a young woman enrolls herself in the girl's college she was attending to investigate what really happened. This 70's telefilm can sort of be looked at as an earlier, far less extravagant version of "Suspiria". After a strong opening, emphasis is firmly placed on the investigation aspect. We get a solid cast, as was often the case in these old TV efforts. Pamela Franklin, so good in "And Soon the Darkness" and "Legend of Hell House", plays the lead role of investigating sibling. Also present is the lovely Kate Jackson, as well as Cheryl Ladd under a different name. It's interesting seeing these two together before they would later go on to star opposite each other in "Charlie's Angels". Not too surprising when you consider that both this movie and that show were Spelling productions.There are some good moments here, but a few too many scenes of exploring dark corridors slow the film considerably. The ending is predictable, but I suppose that's to be expected given the title. It's worth a look, but don't expect one of the better TV horrors.

With good intentions and a title that's impossible to live up to, this early-70's movie of the week finds its strength in scattered moments of suspense and performances that give the hammy material every chance to transcend its lower tier. A pre-"Legend of Hell House" Pamela Franklin (cute as a button, a dead ringer for Thelma from "Scooby-Doo") infiltrates a girl's school to try to find out why her sister committed suicide; she is aided in her quest by a pre-"Charlie's Angels" Kate Jackson. The adults are, like, squaresville, and the student body seems to be harboring some far-out secret, which leads to a totally unsatisfying climax. The restrictions of network television show throughout–despite being set in an all-girls school, there is no flesh on display (not even skimpy negligee), and instead of throat-slashings, we have to make do with death by bamboo sticks.