House of Whipcord (1974)

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

An old man that lives in an old house conducts a correctional institute for girls.Robert Firsching wrote, "Many viewers will be offended by the film's repressive right-wing tone, but its genuine scares and creepy atmosphere will outweigh its philosophical offenses for most horror fans." I guess I never noticed this right-wing tone at all. If anything, it seemed to be skewering that position. But what do I know?I have not seen many of Pete Walker's films, so I cannot put this one in context, and cannot rightly say if it is one of his better or worse films. I suppose I liked it in a general sense, though it did not hold my attention as well as I wish it would have.

Grim, knowing, literate, uncompromising little dig at the British establishment and even sections of the population and it's tabloids' fascination with moral standards and the nasty little deviant punishments thought appropriate - in particular a good thrashing and if really necessary a good hanging. Hang 'em and flog 'em indeed, especially if they are pretty naked girls. WIP, I suppose this could be described as, but how misleading. No pretty shots of a dozen naked girls being hosed down or lesbian sisters kissing or indulging in cat fights. This is English boarding school style bullying and worse dressed up as 'correction'. A very powerful and dark tale of old and not so old England. Some say this is slow in parts. I didn't notice it let up for a minute. Excellent

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.

The not exactly subtle director Pete Walker triumphs here with a very decent sexploitation gem about a well-hidden prison, serving to re-educate naughty young girls and ruled by an elderly couple. They (he's a judge, she's an ex-warden who resigned due to her share in a suspicious suicide case) found the British law-system to be ineffective and therefore order the handsome son Marc to bring pretty girls who committed small felonies back to the prison. Even though the blind and senile old judge doesn't realize it, the girls are humiliated, tortured and eventually executed. The script centers on a French nude model (with an atrocious accent) named Marie from the moment she gets seduced by Marc to when she faces true misery. Walker's idea is great and the film is overall very well-scripted, with an eye for black humor and imaginative perverted undertones. Our daring director clearly aims for controversy and goes for the shocks (the opening sequence ironically states that this film is dedicated to all those who wish to see the return of capital punishment in Britain) but yet he doesn't stuff his movie with gratuitous sleaze or explicit violence. No, he merely reaches this effect by suggestive disturbance (the vicious hanging scene!) and – especially – the grim and ominous characters. Barbara Markham, otherwise a relatively unknown actress, is terrific as the sadistic and quite insane "head" of the prison and she receives excellent feedback from Sheila Keith as the charismatically cold warden Walker. Just as they would repeat it in the equally surprising successor "Frightmare", scenarists Walker and David McGillivray portray the women as the depraved lunatics while the men are weak and unable to interfere. Details that prove that Walker unquestionably was the most gifted independent British filmmaker of the early seventies and his twisted world perspective make him a favorite among cult-horror fanatics. Slightly negative aspects include that many, many scenes are underexposed and far too unclear to follow. Walker also could have made more out of the potential Gothic theme and bleak prison-surrounding. But now I'm just splitting heirs…"House of Whipcord" is an essential euroshock film, often regretfully mistaken for depthless sleaze. I highly recommend it to horror lovers that look for original and unusual stories.