LA RESIDENCIA (THE FINISHING SCHOOL)
Spain, 1969, 104 minutes, Colour.
Lilli Palmer, Cristina Galbo, John Moulder Brown, Mary Maude, Candida Losada.
Directed by Narciso Ibanez Serrador.
The Finishing School (La Residenca) is a Spanish/international film with an International cast. It is a horror film with a sense of menace and echoes Psycho and other films by Hitchcock.
The film is beautifully mounted, set in old-fashioned and narrow educational establishment for problem girls presided over by Lilli Palmer. The film slowly builds up sinister tension with the atmosphere of repression in the girls'
school and girls disappearing. The focus of attention is on the principal's son played by John Moulder Brown who has had sinister roles in such films as Deep End and King, Queen, Knave. The film ends quite horrifyingly.
1. The various titles for this film 'The Residence', 'The Finishing School', 'The House that Screamed'. Which was the more appropriate for theme and style?
2. How good an example of the horror menace genre was this film? What qualities for horror did it rely on?
3. The importance and contribution of the Spanish atmosphere? The school itself, Spain, the girls, the staff? An atmosphere of money, madness and death?
4. Comment on the detail of school life and its impact on the audiences the various personalities of the girls, the staff? The nature of discipline and the way that it was administered? The humiliation of the girls? The explanation of their background and the necessity for harsh treatment?
5. The bizarre aspects of behaviour as background for the horror? The meals, the floggings, the supervision at the shower, Luis looking through the hole during the showers etc.?
6. How important was the character of Mrs Fourneaux? Her personality and strictness? Her explanation of discipline? Her attitude towards the girls, hostility and favouritism? Her pampering of her son?
7. The importance of the relationship between mother and son? The adolescent boy protected and in this hothouse atmosphere? his reactions? His believing what his mother told him? Her preparing him for marriage and for his life? Her holding herself up as a model for him?
8. The importance of Luis and the relationship between the girls, meeting them in secret? His being trapped and getting the girls to release him? The bizarre consequences of this?
9. The atmosphere of madness and its impact on the audience? The various suspects for the disappearance and the killing? The violence of the killings?
10. How horrifying was the final revelation? The composite ideal woman but dead? Luis's madness?
11. The horrifying culmination in the imprisonment of his mother? Her desperate screams?
12. How credible did the film make its horror story and its characters?