Unlike most of William Castle's films, this one is filmed in beautiful Eastman Color--and looks like a high quality 'A-Picture'. Well, despite the look of it and polish, it is anything but an A movie--unless A stands for 'asinine'.
This film starts off with a scene that really didn't make any sense and was poorly done. In a kooky start, the school lets one of the teenage girls from the finishing school drive the bus--and naturally, things go wrong. What sort of idiots would let a 16 year-old and very inexperienced driver drive a bus filled with their students? And, to make matters worse, the road appears to be in California (due to the geography). According to IMDb, the school is supposed to be in Switzerland, but it didn't look like that ever. But, then, how did they get from Switzerland to London? It just 'happens'! What gives?! Talk about sloppy film making.
From London, we see that this is supposed to be a kooky comedy about precocious teenage girls who are all daughters of diplomats of all nations--and it focuses in particular on the American teen. The problem is that the dialog is pretty awful and never sounds real. For example, when many of the girls from this multinational school talk, they do lengthy expositions--explaining their back stories in a manner that sounded really fake. People DON'T talk that way in real life. Also, each of the teenagers is a walking stereotype---there is nothing subtle about them in the least. Talk about sloppy. There is nothing particularly subtle or adult about this film. It's clearly aimed at the Gidget and Frankie/Annette crowd and probably was never intended for a wider audience. If it was, then that's pretty pathetic due to its amateurish dialog, plot and putting so much focus on a rather annoying little girl. Think about it--the fate of the free world depends on THIS girl! Boy, are we screwed!
By the way, note the tennis game. Neither girl ever moves more than a step or two and the Russian girl appears never to move at all as they bat the ball back and forth! Talk about a strange style of tennis! This and other odd mistakes (such as the ice that is mentioned in the revealing mistakes on IMDb and the obvious dummy that is thrown off the balcony) are surprising--usually William Castle directed smarter than this. This one is just sloppy.
For adults, I'd rate this movie a 2--it's hard to enjoy and you'll often find yourself rolling your eyes at the dumbness of the film; for kids and teens, I'd rate it a 6 and it's akin to a made-for-TV Disney movie.
Finally, this is on the same DVD as 13 GHOSTS from a set of Castle films. Despite 13 FRIGHTENED GIRLS being a rather dumb film, the DVD print is great and the special features are excellent. In fact, you might just want to see 13 GHOSTS and the special features and skip this film!
This film starts off with a scene that really didn't make any sense and was poorly done. In a kooky start, the school lets one of the teenage girls from the finishing school drive the bus--and naturally, things go wrong. What sort of idiots would let a 16 year-old and very inexperienced driver drive a bus filled with their students? And, to make matters worse, the road appears to be in California (due to the geography). According to IMDb, the school is supposed to be in Switzerland, but it didn't look like that ever. But, then, how did they get from Switzerland to London? It just 'happens'! What gives?! Talk about sloppy film making.
From London, we see that this is supposed to be a kooky comedy about precocious teenage girls who are all daughters of diplomats of all nations--and it focuses in particular on the American teen. The problem is that the dialog is pretty awful and never sounds real. For example, when many of the girls from this multinational school talk, they do lengthy expositions--explaining their back stories in a manner that sounded really fake. People DON'T talk that way in real life. Also, each of the teenagers is a walking stereotype---there is nothing subtle about them in the least. Talk about sloppy. There is nothing particularly subtle or adult about this film. It's clearly aimed at the Gidget and Frankie/Annette crowd and probably was never intended for a wider audience. If it was, then that's pretty pathetic due to its amateurish dialog, plot and putting so much focus on a rather annoying little girl. Think about it--the fate of the free world depends on THIS girl! Boy, are we screwed!
By the way, note the tennis game. Neither girl ever moves more than a step or two and the Russian girl appears never to move at all as they bat the ball back and forth! Talk about a strange style of tennis! This and other odd mistakes (such as the ice that is mentioned in the revealing mistakes on IMDb and the obvious dummy that is thrown off the balcony) are surprising--usually William Castle directed smarter than this. This one is just sloppy.
For adults, I'd rate this movie a 2--it's hard to enjoy and you'll often find yourself rolling your eyes at the dumbness of the film; for kids and teens, I'd rate it a 6 and it's akin to a made-for-TV Disney movie.
Finally, this is on the same DVD as 13 GHOSTS from a set of Castle films. Despite 13 FRIGHTENED GIRLS being a rather dumb film, the DVD print is great and the special features are excellent. In fact, you might just want to see 13 GHOSTS and the special features and skip this film!