Better the Devil She Knows
When her sister runs away from Fallbridge College for Girls and commits suicide it makes Beth Hammersmith (Shannon Doherty) suspicious as it just doesn't make sense. Getting false papers Beth becomes Karen Oxford and enrols at Fallbridge to try and find out what may have happened there to push her sister over the edge. Karen soon comes to the attention of a group of girls who call themselves "The Five" who in fact practice witchcraft and want her to join them whilst she also finds herself involved with nice guy Mark (Daniel Cosgrove).
I have a theory, if you were to go back to 1973 when the original "Satan's School for Girls" was made and take a look at the movies made since you would find every 5 years a college movie involving some sort of witchcraft or satanic cult thing going on. I don't mean remakes just a movie which tries to deliver something similar but for a new generation with a cast who will appeal to their generation. But the upshot of this is that if you have seen any of those previous college witchcraft movies then the latest incarnation will end up ultimately familiar which is how "Satan's School for Girls" ended up for me.
The minute we have Beth deciding to enrol at Fallbridge College and she gets stared at by the oddball Goth girls the rest of the movie is pretty obvious. In fact it doesn't even waste much time establishing that these girls are practitioners of the occult. But here is the good thing about this as whilst the new audience will have the witchcraft story to entertain them for those who find this familiar we have the who is involved bits from nice guy Mark who hits on Karen as soon as she enrols to the nice bit of casting which sees Kate Jackson, who was a girl in the original movie, show up as the Dean in this one. It means for those who haven't watched the original but seen other college witch movies will be second guessing people's involvement.
What is kind of amusing about "Satan's School for Girls" is that it is a remake of the 1973 movie with many of the stars of this remake having been born in the early 70s. So if you do your maths you find out that Shannen Doherty, Julie Benz and Taraji P. Henson all are in their late 20s playing college kids which it gets away with because all the cast are basically too old for college but still is wrong. Despite that their performances are at a decent level and whilst it is shallow Doherty, Benz and Henson as well as others have the right look for the movie.
What this all boils down to is that this 2000 version of "Satan's School for Girls" is just another college witch movie for another generation. It isn't bad but it isn't memorable and is one of those movies that if you have watched other college witch movies will be all too familiar and predictable.
