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The Pinky Violence films of Norifumi Suzuki represent one extreme of the tendency of Japanese exploitation films of the seventies to combine a very high level of craftsmanship with an unflinching preoccupation with human behavior at its most sleazy and mysteriously perverse. I’ve found some of his films very difficult to get through, while others — such as Convent of the Holy Beast and the film I’m discussing here, Terrifying Girls’ High School: Lynch Law Classroom — I was able to ride out on a seductive wave of Norifumi’s combined visual imagination and sheer audacity. However, unlike Shunya Ito, whose distinctive vision lifted the Female Prisoner Scorpion films damn near the level of art, Norifumi produced trash that, while littered with artistic touches and surprising moments of beauty, never really quite rose above the level of trash. This is in part due to the fact that, unlike Ito, he had a habit of punctuating the episodes of exaggerated sexual violence that characterize much of his work with moments of direly unfunny juvenile comedy, a mixture that in most cases added up to one pretty noxious cocktail.

Further making Norifumi’s films a tough proposition is the fact that — unlike tamer examples of the Pinky Violence genre, such as those in the Delinquent Girl Boss series — he never gives us a relative innocent to root for amongst the hard cases that populate the amoral universe he creates. His heroines have typically been reduced by their surroundings to being little more than cold-eyed engines of vengeance, and we side with them only because they are the least odious of the options we’re given to choose from. Furthermore, because the society they inhabit is one that has so clearly gone completely off the rails, we can’t realistically root for them to triumph over it, but rather to simply tear the whole fucking thing down once they’ve come out the other side.

Still, I have to admit that I get a kick out of some of Suzuki’s films — Terrifying Girls’ High School: Lynch Law Classroom in particular — for how he so spiritedly endeavors to offend seemingly every conventional notion of decency that he can get within his sights. His masters at Toei Studio, seeking to boost their audience by courting controversy, encouraged him to do this, of course — and judging from the results, that encouragement was akin to coaxing a chronic binge eater toward a free buffet. While I’m pretty sure that his motivations didn’t go beyond the commercial, Suzuki, in the course of exercising his aesthetic scorched-earth policy, seems to have tapped into the subversive spirit of certain underground filmmakers of his era, delivering an all-inclusive “fuck you” to society and its combined pieties and hypocrisies with the gleeful enthusiasm of a confirmed outsider. In fact, if its female cast were to be replaced with a troupe of drag queens, Lynch Law Classroom would be in many ways indistinguishable from one of John Waters’ early movies.

But the stars of Lynch Law Classroom are, of course, not drag queens, but real women, a fact which the film offers ample proof of by having their clothing rent from their bodies as often as possible. In the case of leads Miki Sugimoto and Reiko Ike, they are so womanly, in fact, that, despite both actresses putatively being in their early twenties at the time, its difficult to buy them as highschoolers. However, this is not only pretty much par-for-the-course for this type of film, but also one of the least credibility-challenging aspects of the insane alternate reality that it presents, and in the end is only one of the things that contributes to the movie coming off as some kind of surreal allegory.

The Terrifying Girls’ High School series, which was comprised of four films in total, came into being as sort of a companion to Toei’s popular Girl Boss — or Sukeban — series, the first four of which were directed by Suzuki. Running from 1971 to 1974 — and spanning six entries in total — the Girl Boss movies each starred one or both of the studio’s top two ass-kicking, clothes-shedding female stars, the aforementioned Ike and Sugimoto. Though Ike was the bigger star of the two, Sugimoto was a close enough second to keep Ike on her toes, and the two, when sharing the screen, were usually cast on equal terms, often as leaders of rival girl gangs. Being that they were so identified with the Girl Boss films, it was only good business to cast them as the leads when Suzuki set out to direct the first Terrifying Girls’ High School film, Women’s Violent Classroom, in 1972. Sugimoto would only stay with the series as long as Suzuki, however, and both she and the director would leave after the second entry, making Lynch Law Classroom their farewell to the franchise. (I know next to nothing about the remaining two films in the series, but the title of the third entry, Delinquent Convulsion Group, is pretty hard not to be tempted by.)

Lynch Law Classroom lives up to any possible interpretation of its title by setting its action in a girls’ reform school that is not only terrifying as advertised, but also populated by girls who themselves are mostly terrifying. That this institution is named The School of Hope for Girls is just one of its many distinctly Orwellian attributes, seeing as its dungeon-like jail is referred to as the “Introspection Room” and its doddering, clueless administrator, Principal Nakata, natters on about turning wayward girls into “good wives and wise mothers” while all manner of depravity and vice plays out under his nose. Those who truly set the tone at the school are its chairman, Sato (Nobuo Kaneko), a corrupt politician with ties to the Yakuza and seemingly the entire city bureaucracy in his pocket — and who treats the student body as his personal harem — and the cravenly ambitious vice principal Ishihara (Kenji Imai), who operates the school as a front for Sato’s various unseemly dealings while scheming to further his own designs on power. Acting as Ishihara’s personal police force within the school is the Disciplinary Committee, a sort of schoolgirl Gestapo lead by the sadistic Yoko, who keep their fellow students in line by means of lots of diabolically imaginative — and mostly genital-based — torture, while also assisting Ishirara in his criminal activities outside the school walls. The members are compensated by Ishihara with funds from a bogus scholarship.

This film is indeed strong medicine, but the faint-hearted viewer can at least be assured in the knowledge that he won’t be lulled into a false sense of security before it delivers its worst. On the contrary, you will know in no uncertain terms within the first thirty seconds of Lynch Law Classroom whether it’s something you’re going to be able to hang with, and can then plan your next ninety minutes accordingly. Greeting us with the distorted sound of a woman screaming in agony and fear — accompanied by the familiar Toei logo — the film quickly proceeds to a shot of a bound woman’s blouse being torn open, and then of a scalpel being drawn across the exposed breast beneath. This is the handiwork of the Disciplinary Committee — kitted out in school uniforms uniquely accessorized with fascistic armbands and matching bright red surgical masks — who have decided to teach their latest charge a lesson by forcing her to watch as her blood is slowly drained into a series of beakers in the school’s science-lab-cum-torture-chamber. Before this can be completely accomplished, however, the terrified captive manages to make a break for it, ending up on the school roof, where, outnumbered by the evil Yoko and her fellow D.C. members, she is forced over the edge and plummets to her death. Making this sudden visual assault just that much more jarring is composer Masao Yagi’s nerve-jangling musical accompaniment, which is made up of ominous analog synth washes perforated by hysterical stabs of abstract guitar and saxophone.

We will soon learn that this latest victim of the Disciplinary Committee was a student by the name of Michiyo Akiyama, who, in her life on the outside, was lieutenant to a notorious Yokohama girl gang leader known — thanks to her ever-present crucifix necklace — as Noriko the Cross — or, more poetically “The Boss With the Cross”. And it’s not long before Noriko (Sugimoto) — either by coincidence or design — arrives at the school herself, bringing along with her two other hard cases, Kyoko Kubo (Seiko Saburi) and the inexplicably cowgirl-attired Remi “The Razor” Kitano (Misuzu Ota). Noriko is soon made aware of Michiyo’s fate by Tomoko, an over-achieving young innocent whose angelic demeanor (a) makes it something of a mystery as to how exactly she ended up at the School of Hope in the first place and (b) in the shark infested waters of Lynch Law Classroom, has the virtual effect of painting a gigantic, day-glo target on her forehead (which doesn’t make her eventual fate, however predictable, any less disheartening when it comes).

Noriko vows to avenge Michiyo’s death, shrewdly perceiving that it’s not just the girls of the Disciplinary Committee, but the whole school (and by extension — given that the film so obviously presents the school as merely an organ of the corrupt society it serves — the whole world) that is her enemy. Remi and Kyoko pledge to help her bring the school down, and are joined in doing so by two other inmates, Junko “The Jacker” and Nobue “The Pipe Basher”, both of whom are former gang members impressed by Noriko’s street credentials. Eventually the group also comes to benefit from the assistance of Wakabayashi (Tsunehiko Watase), an unscrupulous tabloid journalist who hopes to in turn use the girls in a blackmail scheme against Sato and the various officials who make up his power base.

It’s fitting that Wakabayashi, the only man to side with Noriko and her crew, would do so out of purely mercenary interests. Lynch Law Classroom is a Pinky Violence film, after all, and as such presents a world whose male population is made up exclusively of cartoonish grotesques who are as oafish as they are predatory (in one scene, for instance, Principal Nakata is shown literally drooling). Less “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”, these films’ portrayal of the disparate spheres in which the sexes travel is more like “Men are from the Hell, Women are Just Visiting… and Will be Leaving as Soon as They Can Work Out How”. In the meantime, while negotiating this hostile terrain, the only way that these women can survive is by hewing close to their own. In this light, the women of the Disciplinary Committee are as despicable for being traitors to their gender as they are for their murderous acts (a fact that’s placed in unflattering relief when, as we’ll later see, other of the film’s female rivals initiate a temporary laying down of swords to deal with the threat at hand). Other movies in the genre mitigate this message somewhat by including at least one marginally sympathetic male character, who is usually a love interest for one of the female leads. But Lynch Law Classroom is the rare exception that doesn’t even toss us guys — nonetheless drooling oafishly at home over all of the flesh and smut that’s being proffered — that thoroughly gnawed-over bone. The result is that the most flattering reflection of ourselves that we have to gaze upon is the oily, cash-driven manipulator Wakabayashi.

Given this milieu, it’s not surprising that the women of Lynch Law Classroom view sex as little more than a tool of brute exchange. Correspondingly, most of Noriko and her crew’s master plan to bring about the school’s downfall involves them plying their bodies like so much insensate meat. The first such gambit involves the bisexual Kyoko engaging in a furtive bathroom stall seduction of Toshie, a member of the Committee who, after a little below-the-belt coaxing, freely confesses to the group’s involvement in Michiyo’s death. This indiscretion leads to Toshie being on the receiving end of one of the Committee’s more creative acts of pelvic retribution, involving her doing lots of push-ups with a light bulb housed in her nethers. This is followed by an episode in which the girls lure old Principal Nakata to a no-tell motel and basically gang rape him. His resistance is short-lived, of course, and soon his cries of joy at winning the jailbait jackpot are being broadcast over the school P.A. system with predictably career-ending results.

The girls’ final act of strategic harlotry involves them tricking a group of Sato’s influential supporters into participating in an “orgy” while Wakabayashi secretly photographs them for blackmail purposes. This is an inexplicably creepy scene, shot under an eerie red light and depicting the girls, all wearing masks to hide their identities, lying as silent and motionless as corpses as the goonish officials maul and grope them to their hearts’ content. Filmed with the same voyeuristic eye for pervy detail as the previously described erotic episodes, this was just one of the sex scenes in Lynch Law Classroom that left me wondering exactly who was meant to be titillated by it. (Another was the one in which a profusely sweating Nobuo Kaneko gives a matronly middle-aged teacher a thorough going over with a vibrator.) These films are, after all, meant to function as soft-core sex films to some extent, but Suzuki, in signature fashion, seems to have abandoned that mandate in favor of simply trying to freak his audience out.

Reiko Ike finally makes her entrance at Lynch Law Classroom‘s midway point, playing Mako, a rival gang leader who shows up at the school to settle an old score with Noriko. (An interesting aspect of The School of Hope is that, despite it being a reform school, both students and outsiders are apparently free to come and go as they please.. or at least whenever the plot requires it.) Noriko pleads with Mako to set aside her beef until after Noriko has settled her own score with the school, and Mako agrees, though not before forcing Noriko to jump over a bunch of oil barrels on a motorcycle — a scene that will no doubt hold a special place in the hearts of audience members with a fetish for schoolgirl stunt cyclists. Ike doesn’t really end up having a whole lot to do in the film, and seems to be gracing Lynch Law Classroom with her presence mainly for her marquee value. Still, she’s a welcome presence, injecting the film with a bit of flashy style thanks to her gold lame motorcycle jacket and pleather pants ensemble, as well as providing a mutually complimentary contrast with Sugimoto. The pair work well together, Ike being more of a traditional sexpot, and Sugimoto, lean and intense, cutting a figure more akin to that of fellow Toei action heroine Meiko Kaji.

From this point out, both the action and the depravity in Lynch Law Classroom kicks into high gear, with Noriko and her gang’s clashes with their enemies escalating toward the final showdown. With all of the Christian iconography that’s getting hurled around — not to mention the Pinky Violence genre’s typically literal approach to feminine martyrdom — it can’t come as too much of a shock when the girls of the Disciplinary Committee finally manage to get Noriko trussed-up in a crucifixion pose with electrodes jiggered to her tender bits. Fortunately, Mako barges in to save the day before too much of a crack can be put in Noriko’s stoic exterior. Meanwhile, the powers that be at The School of Hope prepare for the institution’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebration, and Chairman Sato’s first order of business, upon arriving in town, is to select a virgin to defile from among the student population. We know, with a queasy sense of inevitability, that when he points into the yearbook and says “that one” he’s singling out the trusting young innocent Tomoko.

Given all of the callous and exploitative sexual shenanigans that have preceded it, it’s somewhat surprising when Suzuki ends up playing the rape of Tomoko for all its tragic weight. Though neither graphic or prurient in its presentation, it’s an excruciating scene to watch, and Suzuki — who has spent a good piece of the preceding running time training the camera on his actresses’ crotches — suddenly transforms himself into an outraged moralist, effectively shouting at the audience “My god, look what is happening to this child!” Amazingly, it’s an abrupt tonal shift that works, and we’re startled to learn that, all this time — and despite all appearances — Lynch Law Classroom actually had a soul and a conscience. And it was Tomoko. Which of course means, given the film’s worldview, that Tomoko is not long for this life. Suzuki handles Tomoko’s subsequent suicide with the same solemnity and funereal sense of visual poetry as he did her defilement, closing the episode with a visceral emotional punch and setting the stage for the unhinged catharsis that is to follow.

That Lynch Law Classroom ends with a nihilistic orgy of violence pretty much goes without saying. Given all that has lead up to it, it really couldn’t be any other way. Still, that doesn’t make the sight of hundreds of screaming schoolgirls frantically smashing the School of Hope to pieces with bats and throwing rocks at cowering riot police from behind makeshift barricades any less exhilarating. It’s the hard-earned, protracted howl of rage that the film has been implicitly promising us all along, and Suzuki doesn’t shortchange us in the least. In fact, he even throws in a shot of a burning Japanese flag for good measure. Sure, no solutions to society’s ills are offered, but for anyone who has ever, in a weak moment, seen the world as this movie presents it — as a place in which anything innocent or pure exists only to be shit upon — it definitely hits a sweet spot.

There’s no escaping the fact that Terrifying Girls’ High School: Lynch Law Classroom is one nasty little beast, and I have never been more serious in saying that a film is not for everyone than I am in this case. There is, however, the possibility that some viewers might even get a secret thrill out of hating it, and decrying it for all of the many things it contains that are vile and offensive. Me, I like it. Sure, it has a sleaziness that prevents it from completely rising above its tawdry skinflick roots, but it also has a genuinely feral quality that goes way beyond the bounds of typical exploitation fare. And the intermittent flashes of beauty that it contains only serve to further spotlight that convulsive wildness. The movie has real teeth, and it makes me glad that, for all the antisocial madmen out there who have devoted their energies to activities that have perhaps left this world a worse place than they found it, others, like Norifumi Suzuki, have simply picked up cameras and committed their visions of it to film, as seriously fucked up as those visions may be.

Release Year: 1973 | Country: Japan | Starring: Miki Sugimoto, Reiko Ike, Seiko Saburi, Misuzu Ota, Rie Saotome, Tsunehiko Watase, Yuuko Mizusawa, Yukiko Asano, Ryoko Ema, Emi Jo, Rena Ichinose, Rika Sudo, Takako Yamakawa, Kaya Hodumi, Nobuo Kaneko, Kenji Imai, Nobuo Kaneko | Writer: Tatsuhiko Kamoi | Director: Norifumi Suzuki | Cinematographer: Jubei Suzuki | Music: Masao Yagi | Producer: Kanji Amao