- After a rape at a girl's gymnastics school, questions arise and bring to light ancient Cretan rituals.
- A couple of Texans manage a school in Crete, to train girls in Olympic gymnastics and learn some Ancient Greek History. Charles and Francine Lake are helped by an English teacher, a local gym coach and a janitor, all three single, and apparently sexually repressed. The twelve young women try to escape the rigorous discipline of the school, to mingle with the locals on the mainland where there is rock music by a visiting band. When one of the girls is sexually assaulted, the janitor Ulysses, a peeping tom, is suspected - and four girls vow revenge, in the form of a Cretan ritual named the Bulldance. The revenge goes wrong, and it is found that Ulysses was not the culprit. More people were hiding secrets in the small island. One of the girls, dejected in love, goes on to further violence - including on herself, going alone in an arena with a bull 1400+ lbs.—Artemis-9
- Paula is the last girl to arrive in Crete, and another girl welcomes her at the pier, while Ulysses, a janitor, carries her luggage. The girls board a small boat that links the mainland to a small island (actually Lokrum, near Dubrovnik), - seen in a brief aerial shot - totally occupied by a thick wood and the The American School in Crete, a girls-only school for American girls to train in Olympic gymnastics and Ancient Greek history, for summer courses. The school principals, Professor Charles.D. Lake and his wife Francine Lake - a former Olympic athlete. Paula is upset when the janitor grabs her too much, she thinks, when he helps her out of the ship, while the young man, who barely speaks English, doesn't seem to know what she is complaining about. Paula meets the principals: Charles seems to be the manager, but uncomfortable in the girls presence, leaving the first interview to his wife.
The twelve girls do gymnastics in an improvised gym, in the basement of a poorly maintained ancient palace, coached by Jack, a young man. Jane does a double somersault with pirouette, and lands on her toes in perfect equilibrium, arms raised high back to a huge icon of the Great Goddess of Minos. Later, at the dormitory, Paula asks her companions who that statue is, and they give her funny explanations about it. In their first class, Francine teaches the girls about the Great Goddess, who had come from Syria to dominate the earlier Greek civilization.
Next day, there's a visit to the ruins of the royal palace of Crete (actually, the ruins of houses of ancient Salona, near modern Split). In front of the wall reproduction of the Bulldance, Florence explains how the Bull dance was performed by a girl and two boys, «the bull charging at 15 miles/hour» and «the gymnast [girl] grabs the horns, goes over it, hands square on its back, continues on, does a somersault here, and lands on the ground». It was a gamble with death, in honor of the goddess. Of all the girls, Jane is listening most attentively.
The school being so isolate, the only evening entertainment is on the mainland, where a rock group is playing. Jane gets the attention of a young man, and they go for a bit of flirtation on the beach. He catches a snake by hand, and Jane - who was first horrified at the sight of it - ends by biting it's head off, following the man's instruction.
Back at the dormitory. Jane suggests to her roommate they could prepare a surprise show of the Bulldance, for Jack. Then, they notice that two men are outside in a fishing boat, ogling at the lighted windows of the dorm rooms. Jane, revealing her wild side - that had her ejected from a couple of schools before - runs up to the top of the old wall, and faces the sea in her flimsy white night shirt, bare breasts, holding a piece of rope in each hand to simulate snakes - evoking the image of the Great Goddess she had seen. This makes the men to stay longer, and that gives time for Francine to come out and shout at them angrily. One of the men was Ulysses, who pretends they were fishing, but they started off immediately back to the mainland.
Next day, when the two principals are visiting the town (actually the monumental stairs to the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius, in Dubrovnik), police lieutenant Ioannides complains to them that he has been told that one of their students had been seen showing her breasts at night to some fishermen. Charles Lake is embarrassed and tells him that the girl in question had been punished already. Francine interrupts her husband's apology, and menace with a complaint to the American consulate if she ever caught again the local men "fishing" in the night with binoculars. The haughty officer walks away, and has some words with Ulysses.
Three girls escape in the night, swimming to the coast in their bikinis, just to join the rock music band, again. But Jane's idea is in progress: one girl meets with a boy, who has produced a bull's head to wear during the surprise the girls are preparing.
In their bedroom, Francine complains of a headache, and her husband complains they have not made love for a long time. He wants to return to Texas, she likes it in Crete, and that they are booked for months to come and can't close the school now.
Meanwhile, Jane is trying on the bull's head in her room. Then she hurries in silence to Jack's detached house Jack doesn't open the door, because he was having sex with Francine, who escapes through a back door. Francine shows herself to Jane, feigning to come from the main house, and asks her "Are you sleep-walking?" Jane takes this leading question as a way out to explain her own presence there, and feigns to be sleep-walking...
Next morning, during a cross-country exercise, Paula disappears, assaulted by someone. Her colleagues start searching for her, while apparently a hooded man is trying to rape her, and then - as girls are coming closer and calling out for Paula - he escapes in a rowing boat.
The lieutenant has a confrontational interview with Francine, over listened by a couple of girls. He suggests the girl could have been making things easy for the attacker, by wearing few clothes - which enrages Francine. Jane and two colleagues want to act, rather than wait for the non caring policeman. Jane is sure the culprit is Ulysses, but her companions are unsure, and Jane promises to punish him herself. "I've a plan, a great plan," she tells them. Eventually her two colleagues go along with her.
Elaine and Steph invite Ulysses to the island, telling him they need "a strong man they can trust", to make a surprise to coach Jack, and he accepts. Meanwhile, Betsie is having doubts about Jane's plan - but she, too, ends up accepting it. Steph and Elaine escort Ulysses to the basement gym, where Betsie is exercising on the asymmetric bars. At last, they tell him what they want: to play the Bulldance, with him playing the part of the bull wearing the heavy mask that had been fabricated by the other boy. He plays along - and then discovers he is unable to take the mask off, as the girls have locked the harness in his back with a padlock.
They hit and kick him at will, and then Jane, who's wearing a blood red leotard, prepares to kill the "bull" with an old foil, in a toreador's poise. The intervention of one of her colleagues prevents the death stroke - and she performs the somersault over Ulysses' back. "I did it, I did it!" She is so happy, they all are distracted, and Ulysses grabs the foil and attempts an attack with it. Steph knocks-him out with a club.
Betsey tries - in vain - to make a phone call to Rory and Andy, two boys they had seen on the mainland, because there is only one phone, and all the other girls are queuing to call home in the USA, due to the time zones difference. She decides to swim across to the mainland, while her colleagues have hidden the knocked-out Ulysses under some plinths.
The police has come to the island to check on Ulysses, given the facts that he disappeared, and Francine had complained before of his harassment. An alarm sounds. Miss Stonehouse, a teacher, takes a long time checking if all twelve girls are present. Since the gym has been closed from the inside, it takes some time to Charles to find another key, and open it for the police search.
Paula is under sedation, and still in shock. The three girls manage to bring Ulysses to the shore, and Betsey is back with Rory and Andy. The two boys take Ulysses in the boat to the mainland. This time on the way back to the mansion, the girls catch Francine going to Jack's place in a hurry. While the other three continue to the mansion, Jane follows Francine, and spies on her and Jack having sex. Jane is mad with jealousy, because she loves Jack, and had tried to attract his attention a couple of times, and had been rejected.
Next day, there's a feast in town, and kids are putting on a show that involves a wooden bull. While the principals and most girls are at the feast, Jane sends a message to Jack, for him to visit her at the gym. She convinces him to put on the bull mask, and locks him inside it. He tries to grab at her in vain - and she calls out for help. When Miss Stonehouse and a few girls arrive, she claims Jack attacked her... which they believe without noticing that he couldn't have locked himself in the mask by himself. Jack manages to run away from the basement, but Jane runs after him. Meanwhile, at the kids' feast, a girl "kills" the "bull" with a wooden sword, about the time Jane clubbers Jack off a cliff into the sea.
Paula is back in the mansion, but lays in her bed under sedation, attended by a nurse. The girls repent for their action. Jane disappeared. Francine mourns for Jack.
By Paula's bedside, professor Charles whispers his confession, saying he doesn't know how he could have done what he did to her.
Three girls find Jane in a fit of rage and self-destruction, having spread kerosene on the floor, and closed herself in her room about to light a match. The arrival of a couple of roommates prevent her to conclude her immolation by fire.
Paula wakes up from her sedation, sees Charles close to her - and she screams out loud. The nurse comes running in, but he manages to hide, and then escape without her seeing him.
The house is in alarm again, for Jane's disappearance, and the lieutenant Ioannides is back. He takes a phone call and learns that Jane has been seen on the mainland, near a big bull. In no time, he takes the principals with him to the mainland.
Jane is wearing her skimpy white gym dress, walks around the huge bull, listening to applause and incentive from an nonexistent audience. Jack (with his left arm in a bandage) limps forward into the arena. Francine is about to throw herself forward, but Charles grabs her back, and walks forward, using his vest like a toreador's cape. The bull charges in, and gores him.
Francine runs to her husband, horrified. Jane is calm and poised, her back to the large wood announcing the TRADITIONAL NATIONAL FESTIVAL OF CRETE. Eye-to-eye with the bull, she shouts, "Watch me, Mrs. Lake. Watch me doing the bull dance!"
Then she runs forward, in her gamble with death that is named the Bulldance.
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