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Terrifying Girls High School: Lynch Law Classroom (1973)
Dir: Norifumi Suzuki
The ironically named ‘School of Hope for Girls’ (the only hope for
the girls here is a quick death if they step out of line!) is a reform establishment
for delinquent girls who constantly get into trouble and cause general mayhem
in the education system.
Kakuzo Nakata, the weak, ever grinning School Principal (Eizo Kitamura) keeps
order via the sadistic, ambitious (and lecherous) Vice Principal Ishihara (Kenji
Imai) and his gang of fascist psychotics in female form known as the ‘Disciplinary
Committee’ (led by the evil Yoko) who routinely torture and even kill any
girl who fails to obey School rules. And get wages for doing it!
A shockingly corrupt Police force and political set-up (led by the super sleazy
Mr Sato, Nobuo Kaneko) helps to ensure any deaths are covered up as accidents.
We learn that three new students are arriving at the School and they are introduced
to us (backed with a wickedly groovy, and oh so funky, piece of music) in suitably
ballsy style.
Noriko Kazama (Miki Sugimoto) attempts to steal a car to drive to the
School and puts up a real fight when arrested.
‘Razor Blade’ Remi Kitano struts down the street in black and
suede western gear (complete with black cowboy hat) and promptly beats up, and
cuts up, some guys who get in her way before the Cops swoop.
Kyoko Kubo is hitching her way to School in a lorry, but causes the vehicle
to crash after subjecting the lecherous driver to an unexpected hand job!
Obviously these girls mean business!
As the brutality in the School continues the three new girls don’t plan
on giving in easily, and one of them also has a secret concerning the ‘Disciplinary
Committee’s’ most recent crime and she plans to make sure it comes
back to haunt them.
But the girls are not alone. A mysterious, chain smoking, Yakuza guy offers
to help them bust open the School and on one fateful morning the hard as nails
girl-gang leader Maki Takigawa (the stupendous Reiko Ike) bursts spectacularly
into class to add some unexpected help (as well as complications) to Noriko
and the girl‘s campaign to bring justice to this most terrifying High School…..
‘Pinky Violence’ films were a staple of 60’s/70’s Japanese
cinema, where sex, nudity, violence and bloodshed was mixed together with heavy
Western pop-culture styling where the main focus was on strong, sexy, women.
A lot of the movies came in a series of basically unrelated (plot wise) films,
where some were heavily comedic, some were bleak and dark, some were a mixture
of all elements in varying strengths.
“Terrifying Girls’ High School: Lynch Law Classroom” is one such
entry in an unconnected series and is one of four ‘Pinky Violence’
movies in the ‘Pinky Violence Collection’ box set from ‘Panik
House Entertainment'. The other three being “Criminal
Woman: Killing Melody”, “Girl Boss Guerrilla” and “Delinquent
Girl Boss: Worthless To Confess”.
What can you say about a film which opens with a school girl (of course played
by an adult actress, like all the ‘teens’ in the move) being stripped
to the waist by some fellow pupils (all wearing red surgical masks) then having
a scalpel dragged over her exposed breast before a needle tipped tube, inserted
into her arm, starts to drain away her life’s blood into a flask, which
she is forced to watch slowly fill up?
Well I guess you can say that it’s going to deliver full on, in your face,
politically shot to hell Exploitation and insult the hell out of anyone too
sensitive. Both of which are of course plaudits as far as fans of Exploitation
movies go! And it’s tough luck on the sensitive types.
Distorted screams, weird musical sounds capes, lop-sided close-ups on the crimson surgical mask swathed faces and sudden zooms into the dead eyes of stuffed animals are part of the make-up of the above described opening scene in the School’s laboratory. Norifumi Suzuki and his cinematographer Jubei Suzuki (who will give us many great looking, very cool, set-ups) add a surreal horror movie aesthetic to this scene and the close-ups on the sweating, grey face of the victim as she watches her blood fill the flask is genuinely nasty stuff and deadly serious. The rest of the film does not stay at this level of horror (though it has it’s moments) but it at least means that this cruel opening slams the film into our faces from the start and also remains in our memory.
The basic set-up of the film and the whole idea of the School and how it is
run means there is a kind of (less extreme) “Battle Royale” attitude
going on as far as the School staff , Police and the political officials are
concerned, as it seems to be they feel the troublesome ‘kids’ need
to be slapped down and kept in line via any means possible, no matter how barbaric,
and are happy to either do this or at the very least let it happen. Screenwriter
Tatsuhiko Kamoi (“Graveyard of Honour”) takes many angry swipes at
those who run the society that these girls grew up in and no one in a position
of power is spared the accusation that while they preach about the evil crimes
and sinful deeds of the girls (and the youth in general) they are not only indulging
in all those same crimes and sins themselves but also doing nothing to help
the problems they moan about…as quite frankly they are too busy wallowing
in sin to bother!
What is strange about the screenplay though is that it has the girls seemingly
able to leave the School whenever they want and go into town (even to night
clubs), which seems strange for a disciplinary based School. But I guess it’s
a flight of fancy needed to bring in the outside characters and actually adds
a very comic strip feel to the goings on. As in fact does the sheer level and
intensity of official corruption.
The sadistic punishments that the ‘Committee’ dish out play a large part in the movie and include a shockingly cruel misuse of a light bulb, an amazingly drawn out sequence consisting of a girl’s full bladder and no permission to go to the toilet and a spot of nipple and genital electrocution. It’s super sleazy and totally exploitative, but that’s what this cinema is about.
And it has to be said that some of the actresses (like the unfortunate actress who has water forced down her throat) really get put through some very harsh events and do it with total professionalism and utmost style.
There are also two major fetishes going on here. One is the (infamously common) Japanese male fetish for young women in the ‘Navy’ style School uniform (and this film delivers on this fetish big time!) and the other is for panties, as the camera takes every opportunity to swoop upon any exposed (on or off) underwear with such delight that if a camera could drool…the film crew would be swimming!
A shower scene early on shows us the stance on nudity the film will take throughout.
And it’s one of unashamed, rampant, in your face nakedness whenever possible.
The camera switches from lovingly caressing the women’s curves with utmost
reverence to out and out sleazy ogling as far showing the nudity is concerned
(with lost of clever angles and fun set-ups to avoid any genital shots of course)
and it does play very much like the 70’s/80’ ‘Women in Prison’
flicks that were popular in America and Europe.
And staying with that ‘WIP’ style we of course have a few lesbian
set-ups.
These are either skirted around and played with, as in a scene in the shower
room where on bi-sexual girl arrogantly offers her self to the ’Disciplinary
Committee’ stating “I only do guys to wash out the taste”, to
out and out lesbian trysts where a sequence in a toilet cubicle between two
of our lovely young ladies is an absolute delight and pushes all the right buttons.
But sex is also used as a weapon, so look out for a comical seduction/’rape’ scene (not of the kind you’re thinking about believe me) that is so amazingly warped and politically incorrect you find your jaw dropping as fast as your lips can crack a smile and another, far more conventional, rape which is the exact opposite, as it’s very nasty (not so much in what it shows but in the consequences and victims reaction) and ensures the audience is reminded that basically, despite the odd light-hearted moment, this is at it’s heart a humourless and shocking tale.
The nudity and sex are very frequent as you will have gathered by now and this is all fine and dandy, but I did (amazingly) find that a later sex scene, although rather fun and delightfully bizarre (involving a rather weird looking vibrating massager and perhaps the film‘s ultimate panty fetish shot), actually got in the way of the unfolding storyline as it appears very near to the end of the movie just when the main plot is working up to a furious conclusion. A sign of the story coming second to the Exploitation.
But what a delirious (if all too brief) conclusion it is once it arrives!
The classic British comedy series based around the outrageously badly behaved
schoolgirls of “St Trinians” may have done the ‘battling,
anti-social pupil’ years before, but the finale here (especially given
it’s background) even puts those crazy British Schoolgirls in the shade
when it comes to the chaos dished out here! And it makes for a suitably anarchic
conclusion to a story that has been up until now based on regimented control
of the most brutal kind.
All the actors do a good job and it practically goes without saying that the
striking Miki Sugimoto (“Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs”/”Criminal
Woman”) makes for a great lead and she is backed up perfectly by the
rest of the cast.
The always amazing Reiko Ike is here given only a support role, but her introduction
(speeding on a motorbike in a gold jacket and tight plastic trousers) is memorable
and whenever she is on-screen she dominate the frame.
Eizo Kitamura does a wonderfully slimy turn as the weak willed, corrupt and generally perverted Principal and a later scene of him clasping his hands together and drooling is a gem! Nobuo Kaneko is also a joy as the sick and corrupt Mr Sato and his performance during the vibrating massager scene has to be seen to be believed.
Kenji Imai is suitably mean and scheming as the Vice Principal, and Tsunehiko
Watase is wonderful as the ridiculously cool Yakuza schemer.
Basically “Lynch Law Classroom” is a sexually warped, more fantastical
version of the American ’Juvenile Delinquent’ movies of the 50’s
and 60’s and as such foregoes the comic strip bloodletting and extreme
traditional violence seen in the more ’Yakuza/Gang’ based ’Pinky
Violence’ movies like Norifumi Suzuki’s own “Sex
and Fury”.
There is very little actual blood here and the fights are almost all hand to
hand slap downs and cat fights and on that level the film is very much a throwback
to those tamer American films, only with lashings of nudity, sex and sexual
violence thrown into the mix to add a very 70’s Japanese skin to the 50’s
American frame of the main plot.
And the School setting also means the movie lacks those crazy psychedelic, bubblegum
pop styling seen in the ‘Gang’ films, with only the funky, Jazz tinged
score by Masao Yagi (and a few fashion disasters!) adding any pop culture style
to the movie. This is not really a bad thing though as the movie’s setting
and plot don’t make it possible for such trappings anyway.
“Lynch Law Classroom” is the most consistently sadistic and sexually
charged of all the movies in the divine ‘Pinky Violence Collection’
from ‘Panik House’ and basically delivers on all fronts. We have lashings
of nudity and sexual set-ups (from the outrageous to the suitably serious and
cruel), many gorgeous actresses, two outstanding leading ladies, some great
introductory sequences for the girls, solid support performances, full on episodes
of total exploitation and even astute attacks on the hypocrisy and corruption
in social and political officialdom.
Yet another slice of ’Pinky’ perfection.
As mentioned above this film is part of the ‘Panik
House Entertainment' ‘Pinky Violence Collection’, along with
three other movies, which comes (in truly marvellous day-glow pink, hardback
novel sized packaging) with a full colour booklet on the genre, a sticker and
a wonderfully trashy and generally cool CD of Reiko Ike pop songs filled with
sexy moaning and groaning.
The extras on the actual “Lynch Law” disc are the Theatrical trailer,
bios, stills, production Notes and yet another informative commentary track
by Chris D.
Once again ‘Panik House’ has given us a lovely looking anamorphic,
2.35.1, transfer that captures the movie’s colour scheme and framing perfectly
and a nice and clear Japanese, 2.0 Mono, soundtrack with excellent subtitles.
Rush out and grab yourself a bit of ‘Pinky’ action as soon as you
can as ‘Panik House’ has yet again delivered.
