Pedro L. Ramírez’s 1975 film, School Of Death, is set in the 1890’s and opens with a scene where a man has a teenaged girl bound to an operating table inside a dark laboratory. She screams, clearly terrified, as he grabs his scalpel and proceeds to cut into the side of her head. It’s a very strong opening scene that doesn’t really quite set the proper tone for the gothic horror trappings that follow, but it’s definitely a memorable way to open the film.From here, we meet the residents of the St. Elizabeth Refuge in London, massive old building run by an ironfisted headmistress named Miss Wilkins (Norma Kastel) that serves as an institution where wayward young women are trained in the art of servitude, eventually to be placed as employees at the various affluent homes around the area. Wilkins has no qualms whatsoever about punishing any of the girls in her care should they get out of line even once, he assistant, Miss Colton, seemingly all too happy to whip them for their transgressions. However, as bad as Colton and her whip might be to those who get out of line, the punishments doled out by Dr. Krueger (Dean Selmier) are even worse. The other problem is, aside from the abuse, once the girls leave the school to enter their new careers, they seem to vanish without a trace.Lenore Johnson (Sandra Mozarowsky), one of the latest additions to the school, is a rebellious type and when her friend Sylvia Smith (Victoria Vera) leaves the school and winds up dead under very strange circumstances at the home of a very wealthy man, she takes it upon herself to find out what happened to her and what’s really going on behind the walls of the school.Quite deliberate in its pacing, School Of Death is, after it’s more exploitative opening scene, a definite slow burn but one that will reward patient viewers who like healthy doses of mystery along with their horror. Although the movie never gets particularly scary, it does build some decent tension in its second half, as what starts out as a fairly standard story of bad goings on at a girls school starts to take some weird twists and turns. The movie also benefits from a solid, if not super memorable, score and some seriously excellent cinematography from Antonio L. Ballesteros hijo that ensures that even during the film’s slower parts, the movie always looks great, never lacking in atmosphere.Those expecting liberal doses of violence, bloodshed or nudity – hallmarks of seventies European horror films to be sure – may walk away disappointed and Dean Selmier’s performance is pretty wooden, but overall, School Of Death turns out to be a pretty good watch. Selmier notwithstanding, the rest of the cast members are pretty decent and the film’s production values quite strong. The first half meanders a bit but things definitely do pick up in the latter half of the film as Ramírez and company bring it to a pretty satisfying conclusion.School Of Death, which makes its worldwide debut on disc with this release from Mondo Macabro, arrives on Region Free Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition presentation taken from a new 4k scan of the original 35mm negative and framed at 1.66.1 widescreen with the feature taking up 23.2GBs of space on the 25GB disc. The transfer is excellent. There’s impressive detail and depth throughout, even in the many darker interior scenes, while color reproduction always looks nice and natural. The elements used were clearly in fantastic shape as you’ll be hard pressed to spot any print damage here at all, while the natural film grain you’d want is properly preserved. There are no noticeable issues with compression, noise reduction or edge enhancement and skin tones look natural throughout. We get good black levels as well. All in all, the movie looks great.English and Spanish language options are provided in 16-bit DTS-HD 2.0 mono with optional subtitles provided in English for both tracks. Both tracks are clean, clear and nicely balanced, free of any hiss or distortion. The score has a bit more depth to it than you might expect an older mono track to provide. The subtitles are clean, clear and easy to read. No issues here.Aside from the Mondo Macabro promo reel, menus and chapter selection options the only extra feature on the disc is a commentary from the omnipresent Kat Ellinger. She goes over how the film has been somewhat underseen prior to this release and how it was really only available in low quality bootlegs over the years, how the opening scene does the film a disservice by misrepresenting what's to come, the quality of the visuals and its atmosphere, the influence of gothic mystery and gothic romance literature on the picture, Ramírez's career and directing style, who the real threats are to the girls at the school in the film, some of the themes that the film explores, the underlying sense of perversity evident in certain scenes and more.Mondo Macabro’s Blu-ray release of School Of Death may not be stacked with extras but the presentation of the feature itself is top notch and the movie should appeal to anyone with a taste for gothic horror or vintage Eurocult weirdness. Recommended!