PopHorror Let's Get Scared
This March 31, the horror thriller The Blackcoat’s Daughter will debut in theaters across the country and is now
available exclusively on DirecTV. The film, which is directed by Osgood “Oz” Perkins (I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House 2016) and stars Emma Roberts (American Horror Story TV series) and Lucy Boynton (Don’t Knock Twice 2016), is about two girls who must battle a mysterious evil force when they get left behind at their boarding school over winter break. This got us at PopHorror thinking about horror movie boarding and prep schools and the mysterious and sometimes life-threatening things that go on in them. Here are our top nine boarding and prep schools that you should probably avoid sending your kids to, despite the scholarship and waved application fee.
8. Brangwyn – The Moth Diaries (2011)
Directed and written by Mary Harron (American Psycho 2000)
Starring Sarah Bolger (The Tudors TV series), Sarah Gadon (Dracula Untold 2014), and Lily Cole (Snow White and the Huntsman 2012)
Official synopsis:
Rebecca is suspicious of Ernessa, the new arrival at her boarding school. But is Rebecca just jealous of Ernessa’s bond with Lucie, or does the new girl truly possess a dark secret?
Brangwyn might have vampires… and it might not. Why take the chance?
7. Crestview Academy – Bad Kids Go To Hell (2012)
Directed by Matthew Spradlin (The Crooked Eye 2009), co-written by Spradlin and Barry Wernick (Bad Kids of Crestview Academy 2017)
Starring Judd Nelson (The Breakfast Club 1985), Cameron Deane Stewart (Pitch Perfect 2012), Ben Browder (Stargate SG-1 TV series), and Jeffrey Schmidt (Distant Vision 2015)
Official synopsis:
On a stormy Saturday afternoon, six students from Crestview Academy begin to meet horrible fates as they serve out their detentions. Is a fellow student to blame, or perhaps Crestview’s alleged ghosts are behind the terrible acts?
Crestview is described as The Breakfast Club meets The Grudge. We don’t want to go… yet we still kinda do.
6. Swiss Richard Wagner Academy for Girls – Phenomena/Creepers (1985)
Directed and written by Dario Argento (Demons 1985)
Starring Jennifer Connolly (Labyrinth 1986), Donald Pleasence (Halloween 1978), and Daria Nicolodi (Deep Red 1975)
Official synopsis:
A young girl with an amazing ability to communicate with insects is transferred to an exclusive Swiss boarding school, where her unusual capability might help solve a string of murders.
Bugs and murder? No, thanks.
5. Miss Robicheaux’s Academy – American Horror Story: Coven
Produced by Scream Queens creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk
Starring Jessica Lange (King Kong 1976), Taissa Farmiga (The Final Girls 2015), and Evan Peters (X-Men: Days of Future Past 2014)
Official synopsis:
This the third series of American Horror Story, taking place in real time New Orleans. The story is that of six witches living together in a Coven. The witches face multiple enemy’s throughout the series and have to fight to ensure the survival of the Coven.
If you’re a woman, going to Miss Robicheaux’s will be the battle of your lifetime. If you’re a man, you’ll probably end up missing a body part or two. It’s a coin flip, really.
4. Falburn Academy – The Woods (2006)
Directed by Lucky McKee (The Woman 2011), written by David Ross (The Babysitters 2007)
Starring Agnes Bruckner (Venom 2005), Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead 1981), and Patricia Clarkson (Shutter Island 2010)
Official synopsis:
Set in 1965 New England, a troubled girl encounters mysterious happenings in the woods surrounding an isolated girls school that she was sent to by her estranged parents.
You now if it’s a school in the New England woods, then it’s going to have witches. It’s a given.
3. Hillcrest Academy – Halloween: H20 (1998)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heFY1zqvsyE
Directed by Steve Miner (Friday the 13th Part 2 1981), written by Matt Greenberg (1408 2007), and Robert Zappia (Five Days to Midnight TV series)
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween 1978), Josh Hartnett (30 Days of Night 2007), and Michelle Williams (Dawson’s Creek TV series)
Official synopsis:
Laurie Strode, now the dean of a Northern California private school with an assumed name, must battle the Shape one last time and now the life of her own son hangs in the balance.
Michael Myers. Need I say more?
2. St. Bernard Academy – The Craft (1996)
Directed by Andrew Fleming (Nancy Drew 2007), written by Peter Filardi (Flatliners 1990)
Starring Neve Campbell (Scream 1996), Fairuza Balk (American History X 1998), Robin Tunney (The Mentalist TV series), and Rachel True (Half Baked 1998)
Official synopsis:
A newcomer to a Catholic prep high school falls in with a trio of outcast teenage girls who practice witchcraft and they all soon conjure up various spells and curses against those who even slightly anger them.
These witches don’t hide in the shadows to cast their spells. They make your hair fall out right in the light of day.
1. Suspiria (1977)
Directed by Dario Argento (Demons 1985), co-written by Argento and Daria Nicolodi (Phenomena 1985)
Starring Jessica Harper (Minority Report 2002), Stefania Casini (Blood for Dracula 1974), and Flavio Bucci (Last Stop on the Night Train 1975)
Official synopsis:
A newcomer to a fancy ballet academy gradually comes to realize that the school is a front for something far more sinister and supernatural amidst a series of grisly murders.
Apparently Argento had a thing for boarding schools.
That wraps up our list of devilishly dangerous boarding/prep schools. Honorable mentions go to Rookwood from The Awakening (2011), Bullworth Academy from the Bully video game, The Regis School from Toy Soldiers (1991) and, of course, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the Harry Potter movies. Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments!
Check out the trailer for The Blackcoat’s Daughter and get your bags packed for boarding school for the film’s theatrical release on March 31!
