Review: Satan's School for Girls (2000)

Who the hell (pun intended) thought it would be a good idea to remake a crappy '70s made for-TV horror movie? Producer Aaron Spelling, who made the original Satan's School for Girls and is behind this updated version starring Shannen Doherty (who had previously been fired by Spelling from "Beverly Hills 90210 and would later get canned again by Spelling from "Charmed").

Shannen plays Beth, whose younger sister commits suicide--or does she?--while attending Fallbridge College, one of those campuses that has an abandoned student union that, it seems, damn near everybody in this movie traipses through at one point or another. Oh...and a dead tree with a pentagram carved into it. Subtle.

Beth goes undercover at Fallbridge to find out what really happened to her sister, and nothing is as it seems. She hears stories about "The Five," a cult of witches who supposedly wield incredible powers. Too bad none of them has the power to make Satan's School for Girls scary or at least interesting.

You can see where this movie is going within the first five minutes. And that wouldn't be so bad if it weren't such a boring ride. Doherty seems distracted and listless much of the time (she later told TV Guide that she was suffering from a "flaring ulcer" during filming). And none of the other actors, including Julie Benz as Beth's Fallbridge roommate, Victoria Sanchez as a hot goth chick or Kate Jackson (who was also in the original) as the headmistress, can pump any life into the proceedings.

Director Christopher Leitch (who also brought us Teen Wolf Too, bless him) keeps things moving along as well as he can, but this thing bogs down at the script level. The cultural references have been updated, with jokes about Bill Clinton and Judge Judy, but it allows for no suspense, no intelligence on the part of Beth (sure, the guy you just slept with accidentally says "You're stronger than they think," but do you really suspect him of being in on the plot? Do you even suspect that there IS a plot?), no more depth than your average puddle after a spring shower. And the music is mostly synthesized crap.

If Spelling were going to bother with this remake, couldn't he have had fun with it? Or, at the very least, have let the viewing audience have some fun? We know he can do camp-"Melrose Place" proved that-so why not remake Satan's School for Girls as a parody of bad made-for-TV Satan-worship movies, instead of just adding to that list?