Description

At the quaint little farmhouse down the road live an old couple. They seem nice enough, but... The judge pronounced Edmund and Dorothy Yates sane after spending 18 years in a mental hospital for a series of gory cannibal killings. Now, after their release, everything seems fine--until a psychiatrist starts poking around and uncovers the blood-splattered truth. From master of cult horror Pete Walker (The Flesh and Blood Show) comes a ghastly tale of dark secrets and bizarre appetites. "Frightmare" is a must for horror fans with good taste. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

Great Eurohorror title from the 70's! 3.5 Stars!
FRIGHTMARE is a classic example of great entertainment. It has all the elements of a horror film- it is shocking, violent, and scary as hell! The story follows a young woman and her half sister, whose parents were committed to an asylum in 1957. They were released in 1974, and are considerably sane- for a time. The mother (played wonderfully by actress Sheila Keith), who shows some signs of returning cannibalism (which is why she was committed in the first place), offers tarot card readings to lonely customers. She massacres them, and soon we find that the daughter of the father (she was not Keith's daughter, her mother was the woman before Keith came along) has suddenly become just like her stepmother. The girl disappears, and her stepsister (the young woman), goes looking for her, along with her boyfriend, Graham.

The movie is great, but the DVD itself is a disappointment. There are absolutely NO extras whatsoever, if you don't count scene selection, which isn't an extra anyway, as most DVDs contain that feature. But if you are looking to buy a movie packed with extras, this is not the one for you. If you buy this, buy it for the movie, not for the extras.

All in all, the presentation on the disc is crisp and clear, and the sound is great- perfectly representing this classic. If you are a fan of this film, a fan of films with gore, or are just a fan of Pete Walker's work, get this- you will be surprised how good it is! But remember: Don't get it because you are looking for extras, because there are NONE. This has become a subsequent thing with Image's The EuroShock Collection, so be careful when you buy them- you may find that they also have no extra features available.

But again on the movie- if you have seen it and loved it, or are just interested in viewing it, go ahead and buy it. To me, it is a great deal, and I don't bother counting the extras if I really like the movie. I just get it and be done with it. But if you are the kind of person who includes the extras with the price tag, you may feel you are getting ripped off. If this is so, don't get the disc. You may want to wait until a better version with features becomes released-- if it ever does.

Disturbing and compelling
This is a movie most people hate or admire, but it's very hard to love. Pete Walker no doubt wanted to make his own "Texas chainsaw massacre" and, at the same time, some sort of statement about families gone bad (in this case REALLY bad), all in exploitation movie format. "Frightmare" is a truly depressing, shocking and disturbing movie, primarily because it manages to make it's goings-on seem a little bit plausible. The performances are natural and unaffected, the murders unpleasant (but not as gory as you think they are at a first viewing) and the 70's settings grey and bleak. At the heart of the movie, and it's greatest strength, is Sheila Keith! Her performance as Dorothy Yates is truly chilling and yet strangely sympathetic. Her savage attacks on her victims and, moments later, her timid knitting-mother style, chilled me to the bone. The final family confrontation in the attic truly is one of british cinemas most disturbing moments. Rupert Davies as her weak and suffering husband is also strong, but more subdued (it couldn't be otherwise). You are at the edge of your seat almost during the whole movie because you feel that almost no one is save from the slaughter (and how right you are!). Pete Walker never did anything approaching this level ever again (though he tried hard and had Mrs Keith cast as a murderess two more times). However, be warned, this is not for every taste (no pun intented).

Not too bad; Sheila Keith is clearly the star
Servicable Brit horror entry in the early '70s about an elderly couple who was put away several years ago for cannibalism; the husband wants to put it behind him but the wife (Sheila Keith) can't help but lure visitors with promises of Tarot readings, which turn out, of course, to be dinner with the guests on the menu. And their 2 daughters are in the thick of it. Keith is lots of fun in this Pete Walker entry, which is miles better than his House Of Whipcord (also starring Keith). Not very gory, as British critics might try to persuade you to believe (only slightly cut for VHS release), and not great either, but worthwhile for Keith's enjoyable performance. Should be remade someday, with more gore, of course.

NOT "EUROSHOCK".....
This is not a "Euroshock" feature even though it's part of the Euroshock Collection. It's a well made but very tame British "gore" film from the seventies. Mother (Sheila Keith) and Daddy live on a farm in the country. Daddy is nervous and edgy over keeping Mother happy. One daughter lives in the city and makes trips to the country to deliver Mother's little "packages". This makes Daddy more nervous. The other younger daughter is a wild child with a violent streak who keeps getting into messy scrapes. Mother has a phony tarot card set-up where she sees clients who end up in the barn buried under the snow. Mother likes to eat brains. The "packages" the city daughter brings her are animal brains to try to pacify her cravings so she won't kill. She has a history, you see. The murders are few and the "gore" is minimal. The acting is good so you wonder what audience did they have in mind? The film is not scary and the ending is very downbeat--typical for the "type" of film this is supposed to be. If you're looking for a British 70's movie that tells more of a story than it does shock then this is OK. If you're looking for gore you'll be disappointed. Don't let the packaging fool you or the hype that accompanies it. "Frightmare" is more "Dullmare".

Classic shocker from exploitation's heyday
One of the great exploitation titles of all time, "Frightmare" (1974) has often been described as the UK's answer to "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974) due to its bleak scenario and uncompromising violence. More importantly, the film established one of horrordom's most distinctive villains, the deceptively fragile Dorothy Yates, an elderly serial killer who was making a meal of her victims long before Thomas Harris brought Hannibal Lecter to mainstream attention. Sentenced to an asylum in 1957 for acts of cannibalism along with her husband Edmund (Rupert Davies), who conspired to hide her crimes from the world, Dorothy (Sheila Keith) is released fifteen years later and soon slips back into her old ways, luring unwary victims to her isolated farmhouse with promises of Tarot readings before stabbing them to death with various household implements. Edmund's daughter from a previous marriage (Deborah Fairfax) suspects Drothy is still insane and is forced to enlist the help of her psychiatrist boyfriend (Paul Greenwood). But the Yates' have another daughter (the aptly named Kim Butcher!), conceived just before their incarceration, and she's already beginning to show disturbing signs of following in her mother's footsteps...

Having infuriated tabloid hacks with his barely-disguised assault on the Festival of Light in "House of Whipcord" (1974), director Pete Walker conceived the notion of cannibalism in the Home Counties (!) and commissioned a script from "Whipcord" scribe David McGillivray, a movie critic-turned-scriptwriter who later became an outspoken opponent of British film censorship (watch for his brief, wordless cameo as a white-coated doctor). The result is one of the best British horror movies of the 1970's. True, there's a little too much chat in drab apartments and some of the fashions have dated badly, but the film's antiquated charm is difficult to resist. Most of the action takes place at night, concealing a multitude of low-budget sins behind a gloomy visual style, though most of the film's Grand Guignol horrors are confined to the Yates' crumbling farm, an Olde Worlde slaughterhouse far removed from the bright lights of the big city. Walker has described his approach as 'modern Gothique', an unsettling antidote to the safe, predictable (but still enjoyable) Hammer formula, and perfectly suited to an era defined by its social and political turmoil.

Production-wise, the film is competent but unexceptional. The young leads are OK, nothing more, though Kim Butcher is suitably unpleasant as the sociopathic daughter, and there are brief, throwaway cameos from British movie stalwarts Leo Genn ("The Wooden Horse", 1950) and Gerald Flood ("Patton", 1970), both cast purely for their marquee value. Veteran character actor Rupert Davies is particularly impressive as the distraught husband who is incapable (and ultimately unwilling) to curtail his beloved wife's monstrous cravings. Immensely popular at the time due to his role on British TV as Inspector Maigret, he was singled out for special attention by outraged critics when the film opened in London, appalled by his involvement in such 'lowbrow' material, though it wasn't the first time this 'respectable' actor had dabbled in the exploitation arena (see also "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave" [1968], "Matthew Hopkins Witchfinder General" [1968], "The Oblong Box" [1969], etc.). As it turned out, "Frightmare" was Davies' last film - he died in 1976.

But the true star of the show is Sheila Keith, an unpretentious, supremely gifted acrtress who came late to the film business and stayed just long enough to leave an indelible impression on cult movie fans everywhere. As portrayed here, Dorothy Yates' pathetic frailty conceals a ruthless psychopath, capable of the most horrendous atrocities, and the demonic expression which transforms Keith's face as she stalks her helpless victims is as blood-freezing as anything in the grne. Nowhere is this more evident than in an extraordinary sequence - completely unexpected in a British horror movie at the time - when Keith uses an electric drill to mutilate the head of a corpse which she's hidden in the barn...

Image's region-free DVD is derived from a PAL master at 25fps running 82m 36s (86m 2s at 24fps). Aside from a small amount of print damage and some missing frames - so brief as to be virtually unnoticeable - picture quality is vivid and colorful. Aspect ratio is full-frame 1.33:1 and there's no evidence of cropping, though the theatrical ratio may have been 1.66:1. The 1.0 mono sound is forceful but undistinguished. Sadly, there are no captions and no extras of any kind, and it's a shame Image weren't able to secure the original UK trailer, an exploitation gem which refused to show more than a few brief moments of footage from the film, claiming the rest of it was too shocking for public exhibition!! Ah, those were the days... ... Read more

Album Description

This new studio recording features 10 Josh Fox original worship songs, and a unique revision of two classic hymns. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

Exploitation movie with a touch of class.
Anne Marie De Vernay, a young French model fined £10 for appearing naked in a park, is lured to a private 'house of correction' run by a disgraced prisoner governess and her ageing husband, Justice Bailey. There she finds that other women who have offended the 'proper moral code' are being imprisoned and executed.

Despite the lurid title and some extraneous nudity, this film benefits from excellent acting all round, especially by Sheila Keith and Barbara Markham, and has an edge lacking in its Hammer contemporaries. If one can ignore the exploitation element to this film (and these days it seems fairly tame anyway) this is a surprisingly good movie - of its type.

Punished for their Transgressions
This film seems to have reached cult status in some circles. A Young woman is lured to a mysterious rundown estate and undergoes an ordeal of physical and mental suffering for her worldly ways. Hidden from the outside world, females are stripped naked and punished under the lash for their transgressions. That is only the beginning of their nightmare existence of imprisonment where the viewer witnesses punishments doled out by a mock jury of eccentric characters. This film is an interesting entry into the mystery-horror genre but its true intentions remain elusive.

Good Movie, Bad DVD Transfer
"The House of Whipcord" falls neatly into that particularly loathsome category of films lovingly referred to by fans of the cinematic macabre as "Women-in-Prison," or WIP, movies. Nearly every entry in this bizarre sub genre emerged in the 1970s, a decade known for its wacky, experimental odysseys into the darker aspects of human nature. Arguably the best known film falling within the bounds of WIP films is "Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS," a movie that spawned several depraved sequels. "The House of Whipcord" is a kinder, gentler contribution to this field from British director Pete Walker, a man who made several other sleazy pictures both preceding and following this one. "Women-in-Prison" films died out by the 1980s, but now new generations of sleaze lovers can watch these movies thanks to the current DVD revolution.

"The House of Whipcord" takes place in England during the early 1970s, an England awash in a sea of immorality left over from the swinging 1960s. Certain elements of the population take umbrage at such despicable occurrences as a young French woman prancing nude in a public park for the sake of picture spread in a magazine, so an old English judge named Bailey and a trio of middle aged women set up a private court and prison in an abandoned children's school with the intention of abducting those females guilty of public indecency. Tired of seeing "effete" courts letting young ladies off with a slap on the wrist, these stodgy conservatives take the ideas of punishment seriously: penalties at the jail include long stretches of solitary confinement, floggings, and even death by hanging for those deemed incorrigible. The legal opinions of the judge and his accomplices make Joseph Stalin and Hammurabi look like benevolent lawgivers.

The focus of the film is Anne Marie, a nineteen year old French model caught up in a situation way beyond her control. At a party publicizing her nude romp in the park, she meets the darkly handsome Mark E. Desade (that's right, this is really his name). Mark intrigues Anne Marie with his brooding presence and the fact that he likes to do disturbing things with ice cubes. Mark offers to take Anne Marie to see his parents out in the country, an offer the young French girl readily takes up. Unfortunately for Anne Marie, Mark's mother is the hideously unbalanced Mrs. Wakehurst, Justice Bailey's aide de camp at the converted prison. Bailey quickly passes sentence on Anne Marie for her degenerate crime: she must stay in the jail until she proves worthy of release. Regrettably for Anne Marie, Bailey suffers from senility and must rely on Wakehurst and her two uniformed jailers to run the prison, and these three ladies do not intend to offer any hope of redemption to Anne Marie or any of the other inmates. Wakehurst and her cronies start committing extralegal punishments on the female prisoners (as if the whole the thing isn't extralegal, but Bailey originally set up the rules and what his co-workers are doing wasn't in the original plan). A subplot involves a friend of Anne Marie, named Julia, doing her best to discover the whereabouts of her French friend. Everything comes to a head in the dramatic conclusion, as the sunlight finally shines on the sinister machinations at Bailey's prison of horrors.

Fans who pick this one up looking for lots of shocks and gore will definitely find themselves disappointed. With the exception of a hanging, an off camera stabbing, and a few prudish floggings, "House of Whipcord" does not deliver in the grue department. What this movie does accomplish is a squalid, oppressive atmosphere of forbidding doom. The prison where Anne Marie pays a price for her actions looks like the type of resort spa Count Dracula would vacation in during the summer months. The interior shots are poorly lit, almost claustrophobic in their implications, and this fits the theme of the film perfectly. I especially enjoyed the performances of the three ladies who played Wakehurst and the prison guards. Their characters reveled in the sadism of the entire exercise, and as ridiculous as the overall premise of a secret prison right out in the open is, they made the whole thing at least slightly believable. Considering that Walker constructed a film almost entirely free of bloody carnage, the pacing was excellent: "House of Whipcord" moved along quite nicely, and I never felt bored while watching it.

A few notes on the DVD: the picture transfer is terrible. The people who transferred the film to DVD did a lousy job (I don't think they even attempted a restoration; this looks like a VCD), and there are no extras whatsoever. Is this really an Image Entertainment disc? I don't know, but whoever released this film fell down on the job. "House of Whipcord" really needed a nice touch up, as most of the scenes take place at night or in dungeon conditions with little light. At least two of the female leads, the actress who played Anne Marie and the actress who played Julia, are very foxy 70's gals. Getting an opportunity to see these two nice looking ladies in various situations is a pleasure. "House of Whipcord" isn't a spectacular movie, but it is entertaining and well worth watching.

A case of justice gone insane
"This film is dedicated to those who are disturbed by today's lax moral codes and who eagerly await the return of corporal and capital punishment...." So reads the opening caption in Pete Walker's House Of Whipcord. However, should one decide not to shut off the VCR in the middle and plow through to the end, one will come out with the understanding that the caption was for prudes what Bodycount's "Cop Killer" was to policemen.

A girl who has been beaten and whipped is rescued by a trucker in the pouring rain. In a flashback, we learn that the girl is Anne Marie, a French model who was recently fined 10 pounds for exposing herself during a photo shoot for a fashion magazine. She befriends Mark E. DeSade, a writer, who asks her to his parents' place over the weekend.

What happens afterwards is Anne Marie's worst nightmare. Two sadistic looking elderly woman in dark blue uniforms order her to undress, put on a beige shift/dress, and take her before an elderly, blind, and senile Judge Desmond Bailey. There, she learns where she has been brought to. "This court exists outside the statutory laws of this land. It is a private court. We are constituted by a private charter. ... we pass what we regard as proper sentence on depraved females of every category on whom the effete misguided courts of Great Britain have been too lenient." A ten pound fine won't cut it for Bailey and the forbidding governess.

Remember Bill Clinton's "three strikes and you're out"? How about "three strikes and you're dead"? The first time, it's solitary confinement with rats for buddies, the second time, it's flogging, and the third time, it's the hangman's noose, as is the case for inmate Karen Vaughan.

Meanwhile, Julia King, an employee at the fashion magazine and roommate, gets worried that Anne Marie hasn't contacted her for nine days. Her boyfriend Tony thinks Anne Marie is busy making whoopee with her man and tells her not to worry.

Are You Being Served? fans will be aghast at seeing Penny Irving (Anne Marie) being subjected to all sorts of nastiness. Of Young Mr. Grace's secretaries in AYBS?, Penny played Ms. Bakewell, she of the long flowing red hair. Well, this is her debut film, made three or so years before she made it big with AYBS?, and she does well with a French accent and is still the dreamgirl to look at.

Other Walker alumni: Patrick Barr came out in The Flesh And Blood Show as Major Bell. Sheila Keith (prison officer Walker) was Dorothy Yates in Frightmare. Ray Brooks (Tony) was also in The F&B Show and Tiffany Jones.

Compared to the five other Pete Walker films I've seen, this is one of the better ones. It doesn't beat The Flesh And Blood Show or the light-hearted softcore comedy romp The Tales Of Tiffany Jones, but outdoes the grim Frightmare, the tepid Die Screaming Marianne and jumbled The Three Dimensions of Greta. But Barr's Old Testament quote at the end of the movie addresses the importance of administering justice fairly: "If there be a controversy between men and it comes to be that judges may judge them, then shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. And shall it be the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down and to be beaten before his face according to his fault, by a certain number. Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed, lest if he should exceed and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother shall seem vile unto thee."

They don't make 'em like this any more!
"This movie is dedicated to those who are disturbed by today's lax moral codes and who eagerly await the return of corporal and capital punishment".
Directed by Pete Walker and based on his original story, HOUSE OF WHIPCORD is a movie that deserves special mention that on its original release, morals crusaders feared it would corrupt England!
Amusing considering HOUSE OF WHIPCORD deals with moralism taken to its absolute extreme, which makes the dominators even more immoral than their captives.
To be cliched, the film opens on a dark and stormy night; where a pretty young French blonde is looking for shelter for the evening. At a pub she meets a man named, (strangely) Mark E. DeSade; who the viewer immediately knows is a few sammies short of a picnic; and this is confirmed when as a joke he pretends to slit the lovely young lady's throat with an ice cube (It'll make sense when you see it). But Le Blondie doesn't know that, in fact she's an avid reader of the Marquis; who of course Mark hasn't heard of.
But when they reach Mark's house where he invites her to stay the night; the isolated house turns out to be a prison run by a group of masculine looking Eva Braun wannabes who must be referred to by the female prisoners at all times as "Madam", despite the fact that they're hairier even than good ol' Ron Jeremy.
Put on trail before a dithering, senile old Judge; the heroine is imprisoned for exposing her breasts to a photographer- just like when the SPCS under Patricia Bartlett tried to ban naked breasts from TV and film in the 70s (I'm dead serious, and remember; WHIPCORD was made in '74).
So what the viewer expects is what the viewer gets. Lots of boobies, buns and reasonably restrained S&M torture (no pun intended). It's nothing special, very grimy looking, a pinch of degradation here a scattering of depravity there and you have typical 70s schlock; which is still entertaining on that level. Cult movie buffs may want to track it down, but if your cup of cinematic caffiene runs to the likes of FORREST GUMP, then you'd better not pick HOUSE OF WHIPCORD if it turns up in your box of chocolates. Sure as Lt. Dan ain't got no legs. Theoretically speaking. ... Read more

Description

Many young girls have entered these gates...none have come out! Beautiful young women are kidnapped and taken to a prison designed for the devotees of the Marquis de Sade! Guilty or not, they must be punished! The crazed caretakers viciously whip their victims in this nightmarish den of torture and depravity. Those who try to escape will be executed! British goremaster Pete Walker (Frightmare, The Flesh and Blood Show) directs this Euro Horror classic. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

Exploitation movie with a touch of class.
Anne Marie De Vernay, a young French model fined £10 for appearing naked in a park, is lured to a private 'house of correction' run by a disgraced prisoner governess and her ageing husband, Justice Bailey. There she finds that other women who have offended the 'proper moral code' are being imprisoned and executed.

Despite the lurid title and some extraneous nudity, this film benefits from excellent acting all round, especially by Sheila Keith and Barbara Markham, and has an edge lacking in its Hammer contemporaries. If one can ignore the exploitation element to this film (and these days it seems fairly tame anyway) this is a surprisingly good movie - of its type.

Punished for their Transgressions
This film seems to have reached cult status in some circles. A Young woman is lured to a mysterious rundown estate and undergoes an ordeal of physical and mental suffering for her worldly ways. Hidden from the outside world, females are stripped naked and punished under the lash for their transgressions. That is only the beginning of their nightmare existence of imprisonment where the viewer witnesses punishments doled out by a mock jury of eccentric characters. This film is an interesting entry into the mystery-horror genre but its true intentions remain elusive.

Good Movie, Bad DVD Transfer
"The House of Whipcord" falls neatly into that particularly loathsome category of films lovingly referred to by fans of the cinematic macabre as "Women-in-Prison," or WIP, movies. Nearly every entry in this bizarre sub genre emerged in the 1970s, a decade known for its wacky, experimental odysseys into the darker aspects of human nature. Arguably the best known film falling within the bounds of WIP films is "Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS," a movie that spawned several depraved sequels. "The House of Whipcord" is a kinder, gentler contribution to this field from British director Pete Walker, a man who made several other sleazy pictures both preceding and following this one. "Women-in-Prison" films died out by the 1980s, but now new generations of sleaze lovers can watch these movies thanks to the current DVD revolution.

"The House of Whipcord" takes place in England during the early 1970s, an England awash in a sea of immorality left over from the swinging 1960s. Certain elements of the population take umbrage at such despicable occurrences as a young French woman prancing nude in a public park for the sake of picture spread in a magazine, so an old English judge named Bailey and a trio of middle aged women set up a private court and prison in an abandoned children's school with the intention of abducting those females guilty of public indecency. Tired of seeing "effete" courts letting young ladies off with a slap on the wrist, these stodgy conservatives take the ideas of punishment seriously: penalties at the jail include long stretches of solitary confinement, floggings, and even death by hanging for those deemed incorrigible. The legal opinions of the judge and his accomplices make Joseph Stalin and Hammurabi look like benevolent lawgivers.

The focus of the film is Anne Marie, a nineteen year old French model caught up in a situation way beyond her control. At a party publicizing her nude romp in the park, she meets the darkly handsome Mark E. Desade (that's right, this is really his name). Mark intrigues Anne Marie with his brooding presence and the fact that he likes to do disturbing things with ice cubes. Mark offers to take Anne Marie to see his parents out in the country, an offer the young French girl readily takes up. Unfortunately for Anne Marie, Mark's mother is the hideously unbalanced Mrs. Wakehurst, Justice Bailey's aide de camp at the converted prison. Bailey quickly passes sentence on Anne Marie for her degenerate crime: she must stay in the jail until she proves worthy of release. Regrettably for Anne Marie, Bailey suffers from senility and must rely on Wakehurst and her two uniformed jailers to run the prison, and these three ladies do not intend to offer any hope of redemption to Anne Marie or any of the other inmates. Wakehurst and her cronies start committing extralegal punishments on the female prisoners (as if the whole the thing isn't extralegal, but Bailey originally set up the rules and what his co-workers are doing wasn't in the original plan). A subplot involves a friend of Anne Marie, named Julia, doing her best to discover the whereabouts of her French friend. Everything comes to a head in the dramatic conclusion, as the sunlight finally shines on the sinister machinations at Bailey's prison of horrors.

Fans who pick this one up looking for lots of shocks and gore will definitely find themselves disappointed. With the exception of a hanging, an off camera stabbing, and a few prudish floggings, "House of Whipcord" does not deliver in the grue department. What this movie does accomplish is a squalid, oppressive atmosphere of forbidding doom. The prison where Anne Marie pays a price for her actions looks like the type of resort spa Count Dracula would vacation in during the summer months. The interior shots are poorly lit, almost claustrophobic in their implications, and this fits the theme of the film perfectly. I especially enjoyed the performances of the three ladies who played Wakehurst and the prison guards. Their characters reveled in the sadism of the entire exercise, and as ridiculous as the overall premise of a secret prison right out in the open is, they made the whole thing at least slightly believable. Considering that Walker constructed a film almost entirely free of bloody carnage, the pacing was excellent: "House of Whipcord" moved along quite nicely, and I never felt bored while watching it.

A few notes on the DVD: the picture transfer is terrible. The people who transferred the film to DVD did a lousy job (I don't think they even attempted a restoration; this looks like a VCD), and there are no extras whatsoever. Is this really an Image Entertainment disc? I don't know, but whoever released this film fell down on the job. "House of Whipcord" really needed a nice touch up, as most of the scenes take place at night or in dungeon conditions with little light. At least two of the female leads, the actress who played Anne Marie and the actress who played Julia, are very foxy 70's gals. Getting an opportunity to see these two nice looking ladies in various situations is a pleasure. "House of Whipcord" isn't a spectacular movie, but it is entertaining and well worth watching.

A case of justice gone insane
"This film is dedicated to those who are disturbed by today's lax moral codes and who eagerly await the return of corporal and capital punishment...." So reads the opening caption in Pete Walker's House Of Whipcord. However, should one decide not to shut off the VCR in the middle and plow through to the end, one will come out with the understanding that the caption was for prudes what Bodycount's "Cop Killer" was to policemen.

A girl who has been beaten and whipped is rescued by a trucker in the pouring rain. In a flashback, we learn that the girl is Anne Marie, a French model who was recently fined 10 pounds for exposing herself during a photo shoot for a fashion magazine. She befriends Mark E. DeSade, a writer, who asks her to his parents' place over the weekend.

What happens afterwards is Anne Marie's worst nightmare. Two sadistic looking elderly woman in dark blue uniforms order her to undress, put on a beige shift/dress, and take her before an elderly, blind, and senile Judge Desmond Bailey. There, she learns where she has been brought to. "This court exists outside the statutory laws of this land. It is a private court. We are constituted by a private charter. ... we pass what we regard as proper sentence on depraved females of every category on whom the effete misguided courts of Great Britain have been too lenient." A ten pound fine won't cut it for Bailey and the forbidding governess.

Remember Bill Clinton's "three strikes and you're out"? How about "three strikes and you're dead"? The first time, it's solitary confinement with rats for buddies, the second time, it's flogging, and the third time, it's the hangman's noose, as is the case for inmate Karen Vaughan.

Meanwhile, Julia King, an employee at the fashion magazine and roommate, gets worried that Anne Marie hasn't contacted her for nine days. Her boyfriend Tony thinks Anne Marie is busy making whoopee with her man and tells her not to worry.

Are You Being Served? fans will be aghast at seeing Penny Irving (Anne Marie) being subjected to all sorts of nastiness. Of Young Mr. Grace's secretaries in AYBS?, Penny played Ms. Bakewell, she of the long flowing red hair. Well, this is her debut film, made three or so years before she made it big with AYBS?, and she does well with a French accent and is still the dreamgirl to look at.

Other Walker alumni: Patrick Barr came out in The Flesh And Blood Show as Major Bell. Sheila Keith (prison officer Walker) was Dorothy Yates in Frightmare. Ray Brooks (Tony) was also in The F&B Show and Tiffany Jones.

Compared to the five other Pete Walker films I've seen, this is one of the better ones. It doesn't beat The Flesh And Blood Show or the light-hearted softcore comedy romp The Tales Of Tiffany Jones, but outdoes the grim Frightmare, the tepid Die Screaming Marianne and jumbled The Three Dimensions of Greta. But Barr's Old Testament quote at the end of the movie addresses the importance of administering justice fairly: "If there be a controversy between men and it comes to be that judges may judge them, then shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. And shall it be the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down and to be beaten before his face according to his fault, by a certain number. Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed, lest if he should exceed and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother shall seem vile unto thee."

They don't make 'em like this any more!
"This movie is dedicated to those who are disturbed by today's lax moral codes and who eagerly await the return of corporal and capital punishment".
Directed by Pete Walker and based on his original story, HOUSE OF WHIPCORD is a movie that deserves special mention that on its original release, morals crusaders feared it would corrupt England!
Amusing considering HOUSE OF WHIPCORD deals with moralism taken to its absolute extreme, which makes the dominators even more immoral than their captives.
To be cliched, the film opens on a dark and stormy night; where a pretty young French blonde is looking for shelter for the evening. At a pub she meets a man named, (strangely) Mark E. DeSade; who the viewer immediately knows is a few sammies short of a picnic; and this is confirmed when as a joke he pretends to slit the lovely young lady's throat with an ice cube (It'll make sense when you see it). But Le Blondie doesn't know that, in fact she's an avid reader of the Marquis; who of course Mark hasn't heard of.
But when they reach Mark's house where he invites her to stay the night; the isolated house turns out to be a prison run by a group of masculine looking Eva Braun wannabes who must be referred to by the female prisoners at all times as "Madam", despite the fact that they're hairier even than good ol' Ron Jeremy.
Put on trail before a dithering, senile old Judge; the heroine is imprisoned for exposing her breasts to a photographer- just like when the SPCS under Patricia Bartlett tried to ban naked breasts from TV and film in the 70s (I'm dead serious, and remember; WHIPCORD was made in '74).
So what the viewer expects is what the viewer gets. Lots of boobies, buns and reasonably restrained S&M torture (no pun intended). It's nothing special, very grimy looking, a pinch of degradation here a scattering of depravity there and you have typical 70s schlock; which is still entertaining on that level. Cult movie buffs may want to track it down, but if your cup of cinematic caffiene runs to the likes of FORREST GUMP, then you'd better not pick HOUSE OF WHIPCORD if it turns up in your box of chocolates. Sure as Lt. Dan ain't got no legs. Theoretically speaking. ... Read more

Description

In notorious British goremaster Pete Walker's first horror film, the beautiful Susan George (Straw Dogs) stars as Marianne, a nightclub dancer desperately running for her life. Marianne is about to turn 21 and inherit the contents of a sizeable Swiss bank account, which includes certain incriminating documents. Trickery, betrayal and death are around every corner in this pulse-pounding, suspense-filled horror thriller. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Slow, unappealing potboiler by Walker
A few weeks shy of turning twenty-one, Marianne McDonald is seen leaving a Spanish town, quickly packing her bags and fleeing from some men in a Mercedes. She gets a lift from a long-faced, long-haired, smarmy-looking Briton, Sebastian Smith, whom she follows back to England. He pushes her into a marriage for reasons she suspects aren't purely noble, but she turns the tables on him by marrying his best man Eli Frome, who isn't cocky and brusque but seems quite the gentleman. In fact he doesn't make a pass at Marianne for ten days and it is she who has to remark on that fact.

In order to set things straight, she and Eli go to a villa in Portugal, where her father, a former judge, and half-sister Hildegarde live. After her mother's death, Marianne had bad vibes of being marked for death--hence her flight at age sixteen. Hildegarde, a blonde with narrowed face and heavy lashes does not like her one bit. Things start happening after her and Eli's arrival, involving her inheriting a bank account whose contents compromise her father.

Susan George (Marianne) may have a nice body that could've sold Coppertone by the gallon, but she's nothing special to look at. Even the title sequence mimics that of a James Bond movie, with some woman getting her groove on. This movie seems to get its strength on having Susan in miniskirts, bathing suits, or in a bath towel, which doesn't quite cut it with me. Except for Eli, none of the characters elicit much sympathy, and the story is nothing to scream home about. Even the on-location shooting in the Algarve in Portugal don't help.

Anthony Sharp (the marriage registrar) may be a familiar face, as he played the Minister of the Interior in A Clockwork Orange. He later appeared in another Pete Walker film, The Confessional.

Despite being labeled as a horror film, slow-moving, unappealing potboiler is more appropriate. And Pete Walker has done better than this. Kathe Greene's string-accompanied title song is the only other good thing about this film. "Love is not for you, Marianne," she sings. As for the viewers, they may die screaming that this movie doesn't live up to expectations.

?
This was supposed to be Pete Walker's first horror film, it isn't. It's not a horror film at all, it's a movie with hardly any violence, gore or action, no sex, no nudity and no laughs. So what is it?. I guess it's a chase movie with a bit of family drama. I really don't know who this will appeal to. Looking at the title and the cover art you would think you're in for a sexy exploitation movie, but I can't really call it an exploitation movie because it doesn't exploit anything apart from a shocking haircut on one of the lead actors. I still thought it was alright though and watched it all the way through in one sitting, mainly waiting for Susan George to get her clothes off, but sadly it doesn't happen, though of course she has a lot to offer with her clothes on too and the acting is very good for this sort of film, actually it's good for any sort of film.

The DVD is the most basic release I have ever seen, not even having a main menu screen, just a scene selection screen. The print is worn, but it's still reasonably sharp and is certainly watchable.

If you've seen the movie and liked it then you may want the DVD, but if you haven't seen it it's not something I'd recommend purchasing. ... Read more

Album Description

This new studio recording features 10 Josh Fox original worship songs, and a unique revision of two classic hymns. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

Exploitation movie with a touch of class.
Anne Marie De Vernay, a young French model fined £10 for appearing naked in a park, is lured to a private 'house of correction' run by a disgraced prisoner governess and her ageing husband, Justice Bailey. There she finds that other women who have offended the 'proper moral code' are being imprisoned and executed.

Despite the lurid title and some extraneous nudity, this film benefits from excellent acting all round, especially by Sheila Keith and Barbara Markham, and has an edge lacking in its Hammer contemporaries. If one can ignore the exploitation element to this film (and these days it seems fairly tame anyway) this is a surprisingly good movie - of its type.

Punished for their Transgressions
This film seems to have reached cult status in some circles. A Young woman is lured to a mysterious rundown estate and undergoes an ordeal of physical and mental suffering for her worldly ways. Hidden from the outside world, females are stripped naked and punished under the lash for their transgressions. That is only the beginning of their nightmare existence of imprisonment where the viewer witnesses punishments doled out by a mock jury of eccentric characters. This film is an interesting entry into the mystery-horror genre but its true intentions remain elusive.

Good Movie, Bad DVD Transfer
"The House of Whipcord" falls neatly into that particularly loathsome category of films lovingly referred to by fans of the cinematic macabre as "Women-in-Prison," or WIP, movies. Nearly every entry in this bizarre sub genre emerged in the 1970s, a decade known for its wacky, experimental odysseys into the darker aspects of human nature. Arguably the best known film falling within the bounds of WIP films is "Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS," a movie that spawned several depraved sequels. "The House of Whipcord" is a kinder, gentler contribution to this field from British director Pete Walker, a man who made several other sleazy pictures both preceding and following this one. "Women-in-Prison" films died out by the 1980s, but now new generations of sleaze lovers can watch these movies thanks to the current DVD revolution.

"The House of Whipcord" takes place in England during the early 1970s, an England awash in a sea of immorality left over from the swinging 1960s. Certain elements of the population take umbrage at such despicable occurrences as a young French woman prancing nude in a public park for the sake of picture spread in a magazine, so an old English judge named Bailey and a trio of middle aged women set up a private court and prison in an abandoned children's school with the intention of abducting those females guilty of public indecency. Tired of seeing "effete" courts letting young ladies off with a slap on the wrist, these stodgy conservatives take the ideas of punishment seriously: penalties at the jail include long stretches of solitary confinement, floggings, and even death by hanging for those deemed incorrigible. The legal opinions of the judge and his accomplices make Joseph Stalin and Hammurabi look like benevolent lawgivers.

The focus of the film is Anne Marie, a nineteen year old French model caught up in a situation way beyond her control. At a party publicizing her nude romp in the park, she meets the darkly handsome Mark E. Desade (that's right, this is really his name). Mark intrigues Anne Marie with his brooding presence and the fact that he likes to do disturbing things with ice cubes. Mark offers to take Anne Marie to see his parents out in the country, an offer the young French girl readily takes up. Unfortunately for Anne Marie, Mark's mother is the hideously unbalanced Mrs. Wakehurst, Justice Bailey's aide de camp at the converted prison. Bailey quickly passes sentence on Anne Marie for her degenerate crime: she must stay in the jail until she proves worthy of release. Regrettably for Anne Marie, Bailey suffers from senility and must rely on Wakehurst and her two uniformed jailers to run the prison, and these three ladies do not intend to offer any hope of redemption to Anne Marie or any of the other inmates. Wakehurst and her cronies start committing extralegal punishments on the female prisoners (as if the whole the thing isn't extralegal, but Bailey originally set up the rules and what his co-workers are doing wasn't in the original plan). A subplot involves a friend of Anne Marie, named Julia, doing her best to discover the whereabouts of her French friend. Everything comes to a head in the dramatic conclusion, as the sunlight finally shines on the sinister machinations at Bailey's prison of horrors.

Fans who pick this one up looking for lots of shocks and gore will definitely find themselves disappointed. With the exception of a hanging, an off camera stabbing, and a few prudish floggings, "House of Whipcord" does not deliver in the grue department. What this movie does accomplish is a squalid, oppressive atmosphere of forbidding doom. The prison where Anne Marie pays a price for her actions looks like the type of resort spa Count Dracula would vacation in during the summer months. The interior shots are poorly lit, almost claustrophobic in their implications, and this fits the theme of the film perfectly. I especially enjoyed the performances of the three ladies who played Wakehurst and the prison guards. Their characters reveled in the sadism of the entire exercise, and as ridiculous as the overall premise of a secret prison right out in the open is, they made the whole thing at least slightly believable. Considering that Walker constructed a film almost entirely free of bloody carnage, the pacing was excellent: "House of Whipcord" moved along quite nicely, and I never felt bored while watching it.

A few notes on the DVD: the picture transfer is terrible. The people who transferred the film to DVD did a lousy job (I don't think they even attempted a restoration; this looks like a VCD), and there are no extras whatsoever. Is this really an Image Entertainment disc? I don't know, but whoever released this film fell down on the job. "House of Whipcord" really needed a nice touch up, as most of the scenes take place at night or in dungeon conditions with little light. At least two of the female leads, the actress who played Anne Marie and the actress who played Julia, are very foxy 70's gals. Getting an opportunity to see these two nice looking ladies in various situations is a pleasure. "House of Whipcord" isn't a spectacular movie, but it is entertaining and well worth watching.

A case of justice gone insane
"This film is dedicated to those who are disturbed by today's lax moral codes and who eagerly await the return of corporal and capital punishment...." So reads the opening caption in Pete Walker's House Of Whipcord. However, should one decide not to shut off the VCR in the middle and plow through to the end, one will come out with the understanding that the caption was for prudes what Bodycount's "Cop Killer" was to policemen.

A girl who has been beaten and whipped is rescued by a trucker in the pouring rain. In a flashback, we learn that the girl is Anne Marie, a French model who was recently fined 10 pounds for exposing herself during a photo shoot for a fashion magazine. She befriends Mark E. DeSade, a writer, who asks her to his parents' place over the weekend.

What happens afterwards is Anne Marie's worst nightmare. Two sadistic looking elderly woman in dark blue uniforms order her to undress, put on a beige shift/dress, and take her before an elderly, blind, and senile Judge Desmond Bailey. There, she learns where she has been brought to. "This court exists outside the statutory laws of this land. It is a private court. We are constituted by a private charter. ... we pass what we regard as proper sentence on depraved females of every category on whom the effete misguided courts of Great Britain have been too lenient." A ten pound fine won't cut it for Bailey and the forbidding governess.

Remember Bill Clinton's "three strikes and you're out"? How about "three strikes and you're dead"? The first time, it's solitary confinement with rats for buddies, the second time, it's flogging, and the third time, it's the hangman's noose, as is the case for inmate Karen Vaughan.

Meanwhile, Julia King, an employee at the fashion magazine and roommate, gets worried that Anne Marie hasn't contacted her for nine days. Her boyfriend Tony thinks Anne Marie is busy making whoopee with her man and tells her not to worry.

Are You Being Served? fans will be aghast at seeing Penny Irving (Anne Marie) being subjected to all sorts of nastiness. Of Young Mr. Grace's secretaries in AYBS?, Penny played Ms. Bakewell, she of the long flowing red hair. Well, this is her debut film, made three or so years before she made it big with AYBS?, and she does well with a French accent and is still the dreamgirl to look at.

Other Walker alumni: Patrick Barr came out in The Flesh And Blood Show as Major Bell. Sheila Keith (prison officer Walker) was Dorothy Yates in Frightmare. Ray Brooks (Tony) was also in The F&B Show and Tiffany Jones.

Compared to the five other Pete Walker films I've seen, this is one of the better ones. It doesn't beat The Flesh And Blood Show or the light-hearted softcore comedy romp The Tales Of Tiffany Jones, but outdoes the grim Frightmare, the tepid Die Screaming Marianne and jumbled The Three Dimensions of Greta. But Barr's Old Testament quote at the end of the movie addresses the importance of administering justice fairly: "If there be a controversy between men and it comes to be that judges may judge them, then shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. And shall it be the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down and to be beaten before his face according to his fault, by a certain number. Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed, lest if he should exceed and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother shall seem vile unto thee."

They don't make 'em like this any more!
"This movie is dedicated to those who are disturbed by today's lax moral codes and who eagerly await the return of corporal and capital punishment".
Directed by Pete Walker and based on his original story, HOUSE OF WHIPCORD is a movie that deserves special mention that on its original release, morals crusaders feared it would corrupt England!
Amusing considering HOUSE OF WHIPCORD deals with moralism taken to its absolute extreme, which makes the dominators even more immoral than their captives.
To be cliched, the film opens on a dark and stormy night; where a pretty young French blonde is looking for shelter for the evening. At a pub she meets a man named, (strangely) Mark E. DeSade; who the viewer immediately knows is a few sammies short of a picnic; and this is confirmed when as a joke he pretends to slit the lovely young lady's throat with an ice cube (It'll make sense when you see it). But Le Blondie doesn't know that, in fact she's an avid reader of the Marquis; who of course Mark hasn't heard of.
But when they reach Mark's house where he invites her to stay the night; the isolated house turns out to be a prison run by a group of masculine looking Eva Braun wannabes who must be referred to by the female prisoners at all times as "Madam", despite the fact that they're hairier even than good ol' Ron Jeremy.
Put on trail before a dithering, senile old Judge; the heroine is imprisoned for exposing her breasts to a photographer- just like when the SPCS under Patricia Bartlett tried to ban naked breasts from TV and film in the 70s (I'm dead serious, and remember; WHIPCORD was made in '74).
So what the viewer expects is what the viewer gets. Lots of boobies, buns and reasonably restrained S&M torture (no pun intended). It's nothing special, very grimy looking, a pinch of degradation here a scattering of depravity there and you have typical 70s schlock; which is still entertaining on that level. Cult movie buffs may want to track it down, but if your cup of cinematic caffiene runs to the likes of FORREST GUMP, then you'd better not pick HOUSE OF WHIPCORD if it turns up in your box of chocolates. Sure as Lt. Dan ain't got no legs. Theoretically speaking. ... Read more