House of Whipcord (1974)

Better Late Then Never

Awesome Movie

A Masterpiece!

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Here's another one of those darkly effective Brit thrillers, it's simple but interesting story, hitting home. Not surprisingly this offbeat horror, again stars the wicked, but great Sheila Keith as a sadistic guard in a faux prison run by twisted minds, including you know who, where immorality is the crime. English lasses, who've shown off their assets, publicly, in brazen fashion end up here, in this end of the road fate. Our latest beauty, a model, goes home with a guy she met at a party, the son of the twisted governess of this place. The first rescue scene is the same as the last, which effectively shows you the hopelessness of this girl's fate, in this bleak film, shot in drab color, our twisted characters in drab attire, our dark and dank house/prison, a well chosen and isolated setting (god knows where this was). I'm not gonna lie here, this is a very depressing film, with a couple of disturbing moments, but we get the suffocating air of this place and this hell of misfortune shared by this girls. A certain fact: None of these girls are getting out. The ones who escape are gonna end up statistics, or caught, and brought back, where of course they will suffer intolerable and some barbaric punishment. This film too, has moments that highly if, inavoidably have you recalling Horror Hospital, though of course this one is of better stature. This is one of the most bleak and depressing films I've seen, up there with Scum, and although I'm not a great admirer of this one, this horror truly excels as a nasty, unnerving scare piece of entertainment. Horror lovers, watch this one with the lights off.

An elderly ex-judge and his wife set up a kangaroo court to pass 'proper' sentence on wayward young women who they consider have been treated too leniently by the law. Those convicted are forced to serve time in their private house of correction, where any misdemeanours are dealt with most severely: one strike gets a trip to solitary confinement; two strikes results in a flogging; three strikes and it's the hangman's noose!In dedicating House of Whipcord to 'those who are disturbed by today's lax moral codes and who eagerly await the return of corporal and capital punishment', director Pete Walker and writer David McGillivray take a wry swipe at the self-appointed moral guardians of the day, people whose ultra-conservative values made them more dangerous than those they seek to persecute.The undoubtedly deranged individuals who operate the prison in Whipcord are clearly intended to represent the religious right, the older generation, and the establishment—exactly the sort of people who would object to this kind of immoral entertainment; the result is a whole lot of sleazy Sadean fun, as Walker and McGillivray go out of their way to rile the easily offended, their liberal young females being stripped, degraded, tortured and killed by their crazy captors (whose number include Walker regular Sheila Keith) for the most trivial of transgressions.Unsurprisingly, the film delivers lots of female nudity (scrumptious Penny Irving as sexy French inmate Ann-Marie Di Verney regularly gets naked, and Ann Michelle goes topless), although the film is remarkably reserved when it comes to depicting the actual violence, preferring to suggest its nastier acts rather than wallow in gore. Despite the lack of graphic nastiness, the film still possesses the ability to shock and upset, delivering a cruel twist and an unexpectedly powerful emotional wallop in its closing moments.

A not-too-bright French girl called Anne-Marie is taken unwittingly by an odd man called Mark E. Dessart to a secret prison in the middle of the countryside. This place is a correctional institute for amoral women, and it's conditions are extremely harsh. Anne-Marie soon discovers to her horror that no inmate actually ever leaves this prison.This Pete Walker film is not your typical women in prison movie. While it certainly ticks a few boxes associated with WIP fare, it's an altogether more heavy and serious film than others of it's type. It does have nudity and S&M but neither are particularly explicit or detailed. House of Whipcord is much too downbeat in tone to operate as a straight sexploitation flick. On the contrary, it has some strong performances, good writing and capable direction. The setting for the prison itself is agreeably gloomy and is used to good effect. While the film is not afraid to end fairly nihilistically.Penny Irving isn't especially good in the central role of Anne-Marie, she is just a little too vacuous too much of the time. While Robert Tayman as Mark E. Dessart is at the very least incredibly creepy, although quite how someone who looks like this is a chick-magnet is best left unanswered. Much better are the personnel in the prison, with Sheila Keith a particular stand out. She was terrific in Walker's other 1974 film Frightmare, and here she is extremely impressive again as a scary and sadistic prison guard.There's no doubt that this is a very solid bit of Brit exploitation. It's very well made all things considered. It's just not quite what some might think it might be with a name like House of Whipcord. There's not much erotica here at all, so be aware of that. But if you appreciate your WIP films with a bit more downbeat grimness then this one could be the answer.

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.