The Boarding School: Las Cumbres – Teens Not Scared Straight

This review contains minor spoilers. The Boarding School: Las Cumbres stars Asia Ortega, Albert Salazar, Natalia Dicenta and Joel Bosqued and premiered on February 19, 2021 on Prime Video.

A boarding school for problem children located next to an old monastery, in an inaccessible and isolated spot between the mountains. After an escape by some students goes wrong secrets both supernatural and sinister start to emerge.

The last Amazon series I watched was The Wilds which proved to be a revelation so I found myself more inclined to take a chance with a mystery Spanish show set in a boarding school on a mountain.

The show also offers a glimpse into another country’s culture and TV, I watched dozens of examples of US and Canadian film and TV but this is probably the first Spanish made show.

It is hard to think of a better location for a mystery series like this than the old monastery turned boarding school. It really shows the students of Las Cumbres are outside of society, indeed almost outside of time.

From the first episode the strict discipline of the school gives you a feeling of being oppressed. The reason for schooling is to prepare students for the real world, here it feels very different the unofficial motto of the school seems to be that its students aren’t fit for society and there doesn’t seem to be a way for them to change that.

There are a lot of stories revealed within Las Cumbres with this variety of mysteries being one of the show’s strongest features. Like any school there are cliques, the popular crowd, good teachers and bad etc. The dark tone and the brutality place this show far apart from most other school-based dramas.

A few words of warning before you start the show. This show is dark, the acts of corporal punishment inflicted on the students can be quite disturbing. It also takes a variety of forms. There is a scene where someone attempts suicide but at least on my watch through there wasn’t a warning about that.

If you can cope with that watching Las Cumbres is a suspenseful and exciting run that you’re likely binge your way through as you’re searching for answers. There is nothing predictable about the turns the plot take which is so refreshing. The final reason you should watch is that season two was confirmed for the show via the official show Twitter page.

You can watch Season 1 of The Boarding School: Las Cumbres on Prime Video