11-year-old rebel Stephan is accustomed to get on the nerves of his busy mother and stern stepfather. However, his existence soon changes radically when his parents' jobs force them to send him to a singularly quirky all-boys boarding school, the title Shiverstone Castle, an ancient institution owned by an eccentric aristocrat, directed by a headmaster with wird ideas about education, and populated by not any less unruly kids. Forced in with the local gang, the Knights, Stephan will struggle to find his place there. But he will have few moments of tranquility, as his school has its own enemy in the form of the Rosenfels Castle, an all-female boarding school ruled with an iron hand and with its own clique.
The movie received a sequel in 2017, Burg Schreckenstein 2 – Küssen (nicht) verboten ("Kissing (Not) Allowed").
This work contains examples of:
- Adaptational Personality Change: Dampfwalze retains the role of the team's big guy by virtue of being the tallest and most energetic, but his personality is starkly different, being more similar to The Bully rather than a Dumb Muscle.
- Dub Name Change: The Spanish dub translated the title to the equivalent of Blackstone Castle. Dampfwalze also gets translated as Bulldozer (in Gratuitous English this time) rather than Steamroller, its true meaning.
- Girls vs. Boys Plot: Predictably, the clash between Shiverstone and Rosenfels, two sex-segreggated schools of the opposite gender, turns into one.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The film's plot condenses volumes 1 (Stephan's arrival), 2 (the rivality with the girls), 9 (the girls move to the castle) and 26 (the festival) of the film book series.
- Race Lift: In the original book series, Dampfwalze is white, while in this case he's played by the black Chieloka Nwokolo.
- Ship Tease: It's implied Dampfwalze grows a small crush on Inga, while some subtext also happens between Stephan and Bea.
