Sometimes a fish jumps into your boat and there’s no way a film with a title like this will let down the expectant viewer..
This black and white ‘classic’ has a few other names like ‘The Ghoul in the School’ which is certainly more apt given that no werewolf of any accepted form is even sighted. Hairy hands don’t count.
The film is set in a girls reform school. They are all bad ladies but are also all attractive and have perfect figures - ‘Orange is the New Black’ this is not. We meet the girls as they do their exercises in the most buttoned up gear you can imagine. They are distracted by the arrival of a new teacher and one fakes a faint to grab this hunk’s attention. Alas he has a date with the headmaster where we learn he has a secret past the prevents him working as a doctor - here he has to be a professor.
The girls don’t get up to much in the way of horseplay - no naked pillow fights for example - but they do put it about somewhat with the locals much to the excitement of the Peter Lorre-esque maintenance man, Walter. One especially slutty girl - we get a flash of leg - Mary, breaks curfew and meets a local worthy whom she is blackmailing. Her plan goes south when she gets attacked by a pair of hairy hands. We don’t know to whom they belong but she gets slashed to death for her trouble - almost loses her top button too - phew!
The death upsets the headmaster somewhat but not as much as you’d think. Various candidates for the wolfy one are rolled out with the new professor the most likey - so it won’t be him then. Foxy Priscilla starts her own investigation but nearly comes a cropper when she is attacked by the wolf man in all his glory. It’s just a man in a suit with some fur stuck to his face but after an hour of boredom we’ll take what we get. Luckilly Pricsilla is saved by a dog named ‘Wolf’ which is plain confusing. Wolf gets a bite on the wolfman’s arm so the search is on for someone with a sore arm - like the Professor!
Things rumble on with a couple of suspects ruled out before the big reveal. Can the ladies be saved from the hairy handed one and will it be who we think? (Yes).
Given this was made in 1961 I had no expectation that this would be a sexy gorefest but it was tamer than a Tom and Jerry cartoon with the frying pans removed. It is well shot with the classy bad girls nice to look at, although hardly convincing as a bunch of reprobates.
They make absolutely no attempt at a transformation although they do one in reverse which was like some play-doh being lifted off in slow motion. There was very little blood on show and even less flesh - I believe I mentioned? It was however decent fun with some broadly drawn characters trying to outdo each other in the badly dubbed stakes.
Overall it’s a narrow pass but they need to watch about that flagrant false advertising - I mean the ‘werewolf’ never even made it into the dorm!
Best Bit - Wolf saves the day
‘W’ Rating - 12/23
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