Exposé (1976)

You won't be disappointed!

Overrated and overhyped

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The only British film to be included on the infamous 'video nasty' list of the 1980's, Expose, also known as The House on Straw Hill, is tailor-made for inclusion - a sleazy, often unforgivably dull piece of exploitation featuring lots of sex, blood and B-movie favourite Udo Kier. Kier plays writer Paul Martin, who, following the huge success of his debut novel, moves to the remote British countryside to focus all of his attention on his follow-up - an erotic piece he believes could win him the Pulitzer prize.Paul is plagued by visions of having sex with a well-endowed woman and his hands covered in blood, images he doesn't understand and which are hampering his efforts to get words onto paper. He calls for an assistant, and he is sent the young and beautiful Linda (Linda Hayden) who begins to efficiently type up his dictations. Yet something is not quite right with Linda - she sends Paul's faithful housekeeper away, carries sex toys and a large knife in her suitcase, and seems to open herself up sexually to Paul only to repel his advances.Comparisons to Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971) are obvious (the countryside setting, the inclusion of the word 'straw' in the alternative title and in the script, and Hayden is a dead-ringer for Susan George), but Expose shares none of its quality. The sex scenes are gratuitous and ridiculously loud, and the gang-rape scene fails to garner any sympathy for the victim due to being shot like a soft- core porno. What comes in between is tedious to say the least, and the events play out with all the complexity of a soap opera. Technically, the film looks quite nice, and the performance of Hayden adds a layer of intrigue to her character, but without Mary Whitehouse and her cries of moral outrage, Expose would have been lost in the annals of exploitation.

This movie has the triple distinction of being one of the 72 (though some sources state there were really 74!) infamous "Video Nasties" crackdown that took place in England during the first half of the 1980s, one of the 39 among them that were successfully prosecuted and subsequently suffered from a long-term ban, and also the only British film to actually make the list! Now that I have watched it for myself, I cannot say the picture does in fact deserve all the attention that comes with such notoriety but, considering the quality of the sheer majority of those "Video Nasties", this is definitely a step-up! Incidentally, EXPOSE' has a couple of other more appropriate monikers: TRAUMA and THE HOUSE ON STRAW HILL (which is the title borne by the copy I acquired), and I am pretty sure the latter was intentionally evoking both STRAW DOGS (1971) and LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972), two even more infamous films of the era; to be fair, it does owe something to each of them but, to the movie's credit, it also has its own identity.The plot deals with a novelist (a dubbed Udo Kier – as it happens, the star of yet another "Video Nasty" i.e. FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN {1974}) who has acquired instant celebrity status with his first book and is having a hard time following it up (though how he pretends to even be considered for the Pulitzer Prize with a piece of erotic fiction filled with such descriptions of someone engaging in the sexual act "like a virtuoso on his Stradivarius", to say nothing of blatant errors in typography picked up in close-ups, is beyond me!). To this end, he retires to a county house in England and, in order to speed up the writing process and meet his publisher's deadline, he is sent a secretary (Linda Hayden). The girl, however, has an agenda of her own – tied up with the nightmare that Kier himself keeps having (his neurosis extends to donning rubber gloves while making love to his girlfriend, softcore superstar Fiona Richmond!) – and soon proves to be even more disturbed than he is! The STRAW DOGS connection is particularly evidenced by the scenes involving a couple of yokels – one of whom, amusingly, sports a T-shirt boasting the inscription "I'm a Vampyre") – who importune Hayden when she arrives at the train station and then get to rape her in the fields outside Kier's house. The incident, however, does not traumatize her in the way that it should (which is, perhaps, another clue to her unhinged state-of-mind) since, for one thing, she disposes herself of the duo pretty easily but, also, because she had been repeatedly masturbating to the photo of the man who appears as a murder victim in Kier's visions (she even absents herself from typing to go have a 'quick one', with her employer subsequently pointing out "You've been a long time", to which she giddily quips, "In coming?"). One wonders why Hayden does not just 'get it on' with Kier (even if she does, eventually, as well as Richmond when the latter turns up at the house!)...but, of course, it has something to do with her mission there – which is to see the novel through before the revenge (I predicted the outcome of this, by the way: Kier is, in fact, a fraud who has not only stolen the manuscript of the true author and passed it off as his own but he has even killed the man, who happens to be Hayden's hubby) can be actuated. An interesting scene in this regard has the leading lady so into her work by the end that she literally finishes the book for the hero.Therein, then, lies a typical problem with this type of fare: even if, deep down, we sympathize with Hayden's motives, her extreme methods still decree that she is made out to be a villainess and, consequently, has to pay for her actions – but it also means that Kier himself, whose selfish/callous behavior actually put the whole thing in motion, is ultimately let off the hook (despite being the recipient of several knife wounds which will surely make him think that much harder on his next career move!) thanks to the eleventh-hour and, frankly, WTF intervention of one of the rapists who has unaccountably survived a gunshot to the face!! Apart from those instances already mentioned, the violence – not all that gory given its reputation (incidentally, my copy ran for 80 minutes, which I take to be a PAL conversion of the original 84-minute duration) – is directed at an old and nagging housekeeper (when she refuses to leave) as well as Kier's girlfriend (after Hayden has tricked her employer so that the two can remain alone). The sex, on the other hand, is ample and rather strong for the time but still too-obviously simulated (especially Richmond performing fellatio on Kier). For the record, Hayden and Richmond would later reunite for the same director in LET'S GET LAID (1978) – with the film he made in between, HARDCORE (1977), being a fictionalized biopic of Richmond (who even portrays herself)!

Exposé (1976)** out of ****Directed by James Kenelm CalrkeWith Udo Kier, Linda Hayden and Fiona Richmond.Laughlable intent of a thriller with Kier as a novelist who hired Hayden as a new sensual and mysterious assistant in a house far from the city. A video - nasty, filmed in a beautiful set but full of sex without necessity; but it worth it if you want to see a young, handsome and certainly demented, Kier. Well Known as "House on Straw Hill". Released in Colombia as "Extraña Fascinación".

Your reaction to 'House On Straw Hill' will depend on how big a fan of Udo Kier you are. If like me you think he's one of the coolest actors in the history of cinema you'll find this to be a fascinating piece of 70s exploitation. Udo plays Paul Martin, an arrogant and cold best-selling novelist having trouble completing his latest opus. After several aborted attempts around the globe he ends up in a secluded country house in England. When he hires a new secretary (Linda Hayden) he gets more than he bargained before. She is polymorphously perverse and is harboring a secret. In between dictation sessions Udo gets all hot and bothered with this mysterious newcomer. Meanwhile corpses begin to appear in unexpected places. Who is this woman and what does she want? Watch 'House On Straw Hill' and all will be revealed. A pretty cool movie all round with a strong performance from (an apparently dubbed) Kier, and plenty of nudity to satisfy smut fans.