This film has a primarily good reaction from the few reviews of it posted here on IMDb. In the genre of classic cult and exploitation flicks it's probably one of the better ones in terms of story line and the acting isn't too bad. Seventeen year old Donna Price (Gloria Castillo) gets sent to the Hastings School For Girls for what I thought was a pretty flimsy but credible pretext, not ratting out the guy who ran over and killed a pedestrian while she was a passenger in his car. But given her abusive home background and generally uncooperative behavior, the judge who made the decision felt his hands were tied.
Once there, Donna is pretty much accepted by the other girls until a phone call by Vince (Edd Byrnes), the driver of the hit and run car, implicates her in squealing on a friend who was aware of the circumstances surrounding the death of the pedestrian. When Josie Brigg (Luana Anders) arrives at Hastings, Donna finds herself on the receiving end of a series of attacks, the most imaginative being a snake placed in her bed! For her trouble, Donna's only friend Ruth (Jan Englund) gets whacked with a baseball bat requiring stitches. To his credit, psychologist David Lindsay (Ross Ford) attempts a humanistic approach to resolve the issues confronting the troubled girls, but of all the characters in the story, he's the most wooden.
Considering the era, I found much of the dialog to border on the style of the beat generation. My favorite groan inducing line was uttered by Donna's suitor Jackie Dodd (Ralph Reed), who upon meeting her for the first time stated that "Anything I like on a hot day is a cool chick." The finale finds Jackie in a tussle with bad boy Vince when the hoodlum tries to crash his way into Hastings to 'take care of' the girls who could do him in. The resolution of the story absolves Donna of any wrongdoing and restores her reputation, but with no indication as to what lies ahead. A return to her sadistic aunt and abusive uncle would have been out of the question.
Perhaps notable by way of trivia is the first screen appearance of Sally Kellerman, unrecognizable as reform school girl Marcia who gets stabbed in the arm by Donna during one of many spirited confrontations. This was after the 'snake in the bed' trick, so you could understand Donna's nerves being on edge.
Once there, Donna is pretty much accepted by the other girls until a phone call by Vince (Edd Byrnes), the driver of the hit and run car, implicates her in squealing on a friend who was aware of the circumstances surrounding the death of the pedestrian. When Josie Brigg (Luana Anders) arrives at Hastings, Donna finds herself on the receiving end of a series of attacks, the most imaginative being a snake placed in her bed! For her trouble, Donna's only friend Ruth (Jan Englund) gets whacked with a baseball bat requiring stitches. To his credit, psychologist David Lindsay (Ross Ford) attempts a humanistic approach to resolve the issues confronting the troubled girls, but of all the characters in the story, he's the most wooden.
Considering the era, I found much of the dialog to border on the style of the beat generation. My favorite groan inducing line was uttered by Donna's suitor Jackie Dodd (Ralph Reed), who upon meeting her for the first time stated that "Anything I like on a hot day is a cool chick." The finale finds Jackie in a tussle with bad boy Vince when the hoodlum tries to crash his way into Hastings to 'take care of' the girls who could do him in. The resolution of the story absolves Donna of any wrongdoing and restores her reputation, but with no indication as to what lies ahead. A return to her sadistic aunt and abusive uncle would have been out of the question.
Perhaps notable by way of trivia is the first screen appearance of Sally Kellerman, unrecognizable as reform school girl Marcia who gets stabbed in the arm by Donna during one of many spirited confrontations. This was after the 'snake in the bed' trick, so you could understand Donna's nerves being on edge.