Stag Model Slaughter

source: Stag Model Slaughter

'House of Whipcord' is one hell of a fun and deranged movie. As all of Walker's films have a political or social undertone, much like George Romero does with his zombie franchise, this particular film satirizes corporal punishment and harassment in the workplace. The film starts off at a lively office party where a young model Anne-Marie (Penny Irving) was recently called to justice for showing her breasts in a photo shoot she did. Her work colleagues find out about this and brush it off as a joke and all have a friendly laugh about it. Anne-Marie meets a guy named Mark E. Desade (I see what you did there.), whom has taken a liking to Anne-Marie, and the eventually go out. After their dinner date, Mark wants Anne to meet his mother and drives her out to the country to meet her, however once she gets out of the car, Mark speeds off leaving her in the cold. There is someone waiting for Anne, and leads her to a dreadful place which is an off the grid women's home that is supposed to cure women of their wicked ways. The place is run by the evil Mrs. Wakehurst (Barbara Markham) and her husband Justice Bailey (Patrick Barr) who are not above brutally torturing or even murdering their kidnapped victims. Mrs. Wakehurst is helped by Walker (Sheila Keith) and Bates (Dorothy Gordon), a due of two old ladies who use whips to keep the ladies in line. Will Anne and the other girls get out alive? This film could be compared to the 'women in prison' genre, but it is much more than that. 'House of Whipcord' is more sadistic than that and less sexy. It's also much darker and sinister than other films of that sub-genre. I enjoyed seeing how Mrs. Wakehurst had a troubled past as well and the irony of how these old ladies are quick to deal out brutal and serious punishment for small crimes like shoplifting or exposing yourself, but the old ladies in charge of the home severely beat and murder people. This is a great psychological horror film, one that some of the characters will stay in your mind for days after viewing.

This movie could have been typical 70's exploitation * but director Peter Walker turns it around and makes it a grimy desadean attack on the ruling classes. The scene in which the blind judge continues making a solemn speech well after the prisoners have all left the room is worthy of Bunuel. It's all a bit heavy handed and obvious and it seems as though this movie should have been more shocking for it too really work but the bizzare grimy sepia tone of the whole thing really makes it much better than anyone could have expected.

Written by David McGillivray, clearly talentless * and horror vet, whose career outside sexploitation was total flop, this trash is very much like the screenwriter himself: grimy, nasty and oozing with sleazy, slimy hypocrisy. Those bad mad old people - the film is even dedicated to the advocates of "better old days" - keep private prison for kidnapped young women and then torture and murder them. Lot of whipping of * young women - apparently some bored critic called this "feeble flogging fantasy" - and lot of melodramatic acting from Penny Irving. Production values are suitably trashy to suit such boring garbage. Highly recommended to the horror fans... or flogging fans. No wonder the British cinema - as well as McGillivray's career - died in 1970's.

Although defended as allegory, this film is nothing but shock sexploitation. Young women are held captive and stripped to be whipped. Death by hanging follows for some. One can see why UK cinema died in the 70's!

An old, blind judge, his crazy wife who once was a wardeness of a prison but dismissed for her complicity in a girl's death, two guards from said prison as retainers of some type, and a son with a "CLOSE" love for his mother who goes out in public as Mark E. Dessard(something like that)round out the antagonists in this interesting, exploitative, misogynistic treatment by British director Peter Walker. The protagonists are, of course, scantily clad girls being flogged, humiliated, and hanged in an old run-down prison in the English countryside. The girls are brought there by the son who finds girls of an indecent nature(flashing in public and the like)where they are then sentenced and mistreated. Boy, would there really be prison over-crowding today! The film has a very dark edge to it without any humanity. The brutality used toward the women is cold and has a decidedly anti-women flair to it. What I did like about it was its obvious atmosphere. Walker has some skill as a director to be sure. His tense scenes in the prison with the veiled lighting and austere setting propel this feature from just another female prison movie to something quite different. Whether that is good or not is for you to decide. I am really not sure how I feel. The acting also helps as everyone involved is at the very least adequate. Ms. Irving, as the French girl, is quite fetching and does a credible job in the lead. The girl playing her roommate is an even brighter highlight(very lovely!). Barbara Markham makes as cold a wardeness as I have ever seen. For me the acting highlight belongs to Shelia Keith as the primary guard. She is able somehow to add a relaxedness to her role while even a touch(admittedly a rather small touch) of sympathy(the scene where she goes to get some lotion for the wounds she inflicted).

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.

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.

Cultists looking for 'lost' figures to venerate have given the Pete Walker/ David Mcgillivray exploitation collaborations from the mid-70's something of a retrospective reputation. And it's a pretty inflated one at that. 'House of Whipcord' and 'Frightmare" are slightly above average schlock but 'Schizo' is merely dire. All Walker's films are notable for their excellent, atmospheric photography and surprisingly-good-for-the-genre performances. But anyone attempting to sell you Pete n' Dave as genuine born again AUTEURS should really get out more. Or perhaps stay in but watch better films. NOT lost classics, but superior titillation nonetheless.

HOUSE OF WHIPCORD Aspect ratio: 1.75:1 Sound format: Mono A French exchange student (Penny Irving) is lured to an old house in the English countryside where she's incarcerated by a senile old judge (Patrick Barr) and his crazy wife (Barbara Markham), who seek to punish impure young women for 'crimes against morality'. This was British director Pete Walker's first collaboration with legendary exploitation scriptwriter David McGillivray (HOUSE OF MORTAL SIN, SATAN'S SLAVE, etc.), spawned from a pre-determined ad campaign showing a screaming, half-naked starlet framed by a hangman's noose. The result is a minor classic in which part-time * model Irving is lured into captivity by her creepy new boyfriend (Robert Tayman, from VAMPIRE CIRCUS) and imprisoned by Barr and Markham. Unwilling to take her predicament lying down, Irving plots escape with her fellow inmates and suffers all manner of indignities at the hands of cruel warder Sheila Keith and her equally depraved second-in-command (Dorothy Gordon). Cleverly written and cheaply produced in response to an upsurge of activity by the UK's Christian Right in the wake of several controversial film releases - most notably A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, STRAW DOGS, THE DEVILS (all 1971) and LAST TANGO IN Paris (1972) - "Whipcord" opens with a now-famous dedication "...to those who are disturbed by today's lax moral codes and who eagerly await the return of corporal and capital punishment...." Though contemporary critics railed against the threadbare production values and softcore nudity, it's apparent that much of their outrage was prompted by Walker's brazen challenge to the Christian moralists, whose over-zealous rhetoric has always enjoyed a disproportionate measure of representation in the British media. The film is deliberately crude and confrontational, with a vulnerable heroine - played as an infuriating wimp by relative newcomer Irving, sporting one of the worst French accents in movie history ("'Ow did zey bring you 'ere?") - struggling to survive against all the odds, while Markham's brutal staff indulge their deepest puritan impulses. Keith is especially good in this regard ("I'm going to make you ashamed of your body, de Vernay. I'm going to see to that... personally!"), manifesting the corrupt zeal of a True Believer with little regard for pity or compassion. The sleaze quotient is high for a British shocker of this vintage, but neither McGillivray's script nor Walker's laidback direction comes close to matching the debauched atrocities which distinguished the 'prison camp' subgenre during the 1970's and early 80s, exemplified by the likes of ILSA: SHE WOLF OF THE SS (1974) in America, BARBED WIRE DOLLS (1975) in mainland Europe, and Asian shockers like BAMBOO HOUSE OF DOLLS (1973), LOST SOULS (1980) and WAR VICTIMS (1983). Still, HOUSE OF WHIPCORD is an effective relic, and it led directly to Walker's next offering, FRIGHTMARE (1974), reuniting him with McGillivray and Keith for one of their finest collaborations to date.