Private school

A private school is a privately funded educational institution. It operates outside of the public school system, and as such, is not answerable to a regional school board. As tuition for a private school tends to be rather exorbitant, it is generally only children who hail from affluent families that make up the student body.

In the horror genre, private schools are almost universally used as a hotbed of occult intrigue. It is not uncommon for the school itself to harbor some dark mysteries of the past such as housing a Satanic cult or harboring a wanted serial killer. The staff of a private school is almost always untrustworthy and generally eye their charges with great hunger, luring them into whatever nefarious undertakings they are otherwise engaged in.

In the 1989 film Fright House, a private school was used as the territorial grounds for Doctor Victoria Sedgewick to conduct Satanic human sacrifices on campus, which she then disguised as a series of bizarre suicides.