House of Whipcord (1974)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Pete Walker

Writers:

David McGillivray (writer)
Pete Walker (story)

Release Date:

March 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

Many young girls have entered these gates--none have yet come out!

Plot:

An old man that lives in an old house conducts a correctional institute for girls. But he does not realize...

Plot Keywords:

Girl | House | Trapped | Torture | Cell

Cast

Barbara Markham	...	Mrs. Wakehurst
Patrick Barr	...	Justice Bailey
Ray Brooks	...	Tony
Ann Michelle	...	Julia
Sheila Keith	...	Walker
Dorothy Gordon	...	Bates
Robert Tayman	...	Mark E. Desade
Ivor Salter	...	Jack
Karan David	...	Karen
Celia Quicke	...	Denise
Ron Smerczak	...	Ted
Tony Sympson	...	Henry
Judy Robinson	...	Claire
Jane Hayward	...	Estelle
Celia Imrie	...	Barbara

Also Known As:

Photographer's Models (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

USA:102 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:R | Norway:18 (video premiere) | USA:R | UK:X (original rating) | UK:18 (video rating) | Norway:(Banned) (1977-2003) (cinema release)

Filming Locations:

Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England, UK

Company:

Peter Walker (Heritage) Ltd.

Trivia:

Originally Alfred Shaughnessy had written a treatment for 'House of Whipcord' but left as he was in full writing commitments on "Upstairs, Downstairs" (1971). Then Pete Walker decided to have David McGillivray write the screenplay.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Out of this World Super Shock Show (2007) (V)

Quite an accomplishment

A disgraced prison governess and a retired judge decide that the English court system has become too lenient so they turn their isolated country estate into a brutal prison that seems to exclusively house sexy young women who have violated "the public morality". The couple's bastard son, using the very unsubtle pseudonym "Mark E. DeSade", lures the unsuspecting girls to the house where they are stripped, whipped, and eventually hanged for committing even the most minor infractions. This seems like an especially nasty WIP flick, and it is in many ways--it includes, for instance, one cruelly ironic scene where a dumb lorry driver brings a delirious girl who has just escaped the prison estate BACK there thinking it is a private hospital.

But this film is much more darkly intelligent and effectively crafted than any WIP film. It has much more on its mind than crass titillation. It is no less than a thinly veiled attack on the reactionaries and right-wing moralists that were rising to power in Britain (and later America) at the time the film was released. Like the Mary Beth Whiteheads and Margaret Thatchers who railed against public immorality while having tea and crumpets with mass murderers like Chile's Augusto Pinochet, the moralistic couple in this movie are enraged by minor moral transgressions but apparently have no qualms at all about torture and murder. They're also blatant hypocrites--their own son was born out of wedlock and the mother's creepy relationship with him is Oedipal to say the least. As in "Frightmare" the wife/warden is the especially insane one while the judge/husband is weak-willed and so senile he thinks he's signing release orders when he's actually signing death sentences.

What's most fascinating about this movie though was the way the people it attacks reacted to it at the time. While all Pete Walker's earlier sexploitation and horror movies had been virulently attacked by censors and conservative film critics, this movie was well-reviewed and very successful (even though it has just as much nudity and even more violence than other Walker films). Perhaps, the moralists enjoyed seeing promiscuous young people get their comeuppance, or perhaps they just didn't grasp the irony (and it delicious irony--the lead character is basically sentenced to death for appearing naked in public for monetary gain, a "crime" pretty much every young actress in THIS movie is guilty of!). This movie shows just how warped, hypocritical, and above all stupid censors and right-wing moralists really are. Yet they apparently liked it! That is quite an accomplishment.