The surprisingly Italian flick Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory — originally titled Lycanthropus — is nowhere near as exploitative as the American moniker sounds, but still has some solid scares and solid stares, mostly thanks to ingenue Barbara Lass as Priscilla.
As a handsome new science teacher arrives at a girls’ reform school somewhere in the hills of what I’m guessing is Italy, students are being slaughtered by the apparent wolves that roam the area after dark. As we soon learn, however, it’s a slightly hirsute werewolf that knows a sprightly form of proto-parkour, leaping tree-trunks in the wilderness.
But when Priscilla’s equally comely pal is murdered, she decides to get to the bottom of this mystery with the new teacher; the school’s caretaker, with his gimp arm, is nearly beaten up by drunken townspeople in a tavern for their troubles. Red herrings abound!
Typing all that out, it ultimately saddens me that this entire madcap premise wasn’t the basis for a novelty hit by a Bobby “Boris” Pickett rip-off — possibly Italian as well — that bubbled under the Hot 100 in the early ’60s. I think it would have gone something like this …
Priscilla was walking back to the dorm after class,
When she heard a howl that made her heart beat fast,
She investigated with the new science teacher,
And wondered aloud “Who is this groovy creature?”
It was a werewolf … ah-hooooo!
It was a werewolf … where can he be?
It was a werewolf … ah-hoooo!
It was a werewolf … in a girls’ dormitory!
Every few weeks when the moon would turn,
Pitchforks will rise and torches would burn,
The townsfolk would circle the old reformatory,
Just to capture the werewolf in the girls’ dormitory!
It was a werewolf … ah-hooooo!
It was a werewolf … where can he be?
It was a werewolf … ah-hoooo!
It was a werewolf … in a girls’ dormitory!
Could it be the caretaker who is nobody’s fool? (Wha-wah-oooh!)
Could it be the girl causing trouble in school? (Wha-wah-oooh!)
Could it be the old woman hiding in the woods? (Wha-wah-oooh!)
Or maybe the teacher, giving Priscilla the goods! (Whha-wha-ah-hoooo!)
It was a werewolf … ah-hooooo!
It was a werewolf … where can he be?
It was a werewolf … ah-hoooo!
It was a werewolf … in a girls’ dormitory!
Or maybe not. —Louis Fowler