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7
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7 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Rod
Barnett |
House
Of Whipcord
begins on a rainy dark night somewhere in the
English countryside. A beautiful but obviously
distressed young woman is stumbling along a roadway.
She almost collides with a parked truck and when
the driver helps her inside he discovers that
the poor girl has been beaten terribly with a
whip. As the good Samaritan sets off to find a
hospital the film flashes backwards in time to
show us how this woman has come to be in this
awful state.
We find
French émigré Ann-Marie (Penny Irving)
at a trendy art scene party in London where she
is a minor celebrity because of her recent arrest
for public nudity. Although the public indecency
was done as part of a modeling job she is a little
ashamed of what happened and even the lauds of
her friends can't cheer her up. Lurking at the
party is Marc (Robert Tayman), a handsome young
man who takes her mind off her troubles and asks
her out on a dinner date. At dinner Marc is charming
but also demonstrates a hidden dark side when
he frightens Ann-Marie with a closed-eyes game
of tactile distress. This should have warned the
lonely girl off but she seems to need some kind
of relationship and so dismisses the incident.
When Marc declines her offer of spending the night
at her place she is surprised when he instead
asks her to join him the next weekend to meet
his mother in the country. Ann-Marie's roommate
and fellow model Julia (Ann Michelle, The
Virgin Witch) is concerned about her friend
but wishes her well on her trip. Julia has her
own problems and is preoccupied by her married
boyfriend's insistence on delaying leaving his
wife.
The
trip to Marc's mum's home is a good deal longer
than Ann-Marie had anticipated, and when they
finally arrive she's ushered into the gated and
locked compound of an old jail. Immediately the
girl is divested of her clothes, her luggage and
her dignity as she is brought before an elderly
blind judge. She's informed that she has been
found guilty of flouting public decency for her
public nude display. The judge explains that they
have set up this private house of corrections
for the public good. Their goal is to hold people
responsible for crimes that the permissive English
courts punish too laxly. Strict moral uprightness
is their objective and the only solace offered
in this prison is a Bible placed in each small
cell. The newest convict has the situation explained
by her cellmate, another girl imprisoned on moral
charges. The jail is looked after by only three
older women; there are five other inmates and
discipline is harsh. First offense merits a stay
in solitary, the second infraction results in
a beating with the titular whipcord, and strike
three... you're out. Execution by hanging is the
ultimate penalty and one that every single inmate
has somehow met so far. The place is run by Mrs.
Whitehurst (Barbara Markham), an obviously insane
woman obsessed with morality and tormented by
her past. She blames all her life's failures on
the loss of her position as governess of a real
prison years before —
a loss having to do with the death of a female
French inmate much like Ann-Marie.
While only two other women
are employed as jailers, their care in dealing
with the prisoners has made escape impossible.
They seem just as deluded as Mrs. Whitehurst if
not as mad, and at least one (Frightmare's
Sheila Keith) appears to be a lesbian with a streak
of sadistic self-hatred. Sadism turns out to be
the rule of the place as we learn that Marc is
Whitehurst's illegitimate son whose sadistic tendencies
are encouraged by dear old mum. Not only is Marc
used to lure wicked ladies to the trap but also
once mother fixates on Ann-Marie he entices her
to make an escape attempt. This leads to her quickly
making strikes one and two with little hope of
ever seeing the outside world again.
This is a surprisingly good
film. Its low budget never interferes with the
story and even manages to add a sense of malice
to the proceeding at times. This is a fine example
of meager means used effectively to make a solid
movie. House Of Whipcord
sets itself up with a wink at the audience when
it opens with a text passage decrying the fallen
moral state of modern society. Anyone that thinks
this is to be taken literally will be sorely and
amusingly disappointed. The film is an attack
on the simpleminded moralism of those who would
wish to impose their views on society with poor
Ann-Marie as an example of the folly of putting
religious judgments into law. Ann-Marie is clearly
a naive young girl searching for comfort and trying
to find her way when she is abducted and tortured.
She feels embarrassed by her actions and is a
far cry from the kind of evil creature of lust
that the self-appointed court is set up to punish.
Of course, the fact that this system only seeks
to punish women is the classic form of condemnation
strait out of the Old Testament Bible. Remember,
it was always the women who were stoned to death
for adultery, not the men. This Biblical view
of forcing women to act as scapegoats for all
sin shows up in Whipcord
starkly as the moralists don't even consider going
after the male photographer who took the nude
photos. Punishing men is never even considered
by the jailers, as if Eve were the only sinner
and her punishment the only concern. The system
set up by this small coven of moralistic outlaws
is, sadly, exactly the kind of religiously intolerant
thing I see calls for every other week to this
day. That director Pete Walker and his writers
were seeing this type of moronic hypocrisy in
swinging London is not as shocking to me as it
is to notice that we are currently in another
up cycle of the same thing now in America. With
this kind of dark story is a downbeat ending any
surprise?
I've
only seen a few of director Walker's films but
I've been surprised by their high quality. Especially
here, he shows not only an eye for interesting
ideas but a strong visual flair too. His shot
composition is often clever and the film is very
well edited with a remarkably fine story flow.
In the last half-hour of the film Ann-Marie's
roommate Julia begins a search for her and the
juggling of these two narratives is handled brilliantly.
The film never feels rushed but it moves very
well. This is journeyman craftsmanship on display
in a way that makes many more recent horror films
look both poorly conceived and sloppy. I look
forward to working my way through Pete Walker's
films in the future.
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I encountered House Of Whipcord
on its first official DVD release on Region 1
DVD a few years ago. That Image disc didn't impress
me but this presentation from Shriek Show is a
marked improvement. The film is presented in anamorphic
widescreen at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The picture
is clear and colorful with a certain occasional
softness that seems to be either intentional or
a result of the budget. There are two soundtrack
options: the original Mono and a newly created
5.1 Dolby track. The disc includes the theatrical
trailer, a small photo gallery and a very good
commentary track. Pete Walker and his cinematographer
on the film, Peter Jessup, are joined by Walker
biographer Professor Steven Chibnall for a lively
trek through the movie. There are some dead spots
on the track, and at times Walker seems at a loss
for the correct word, but it's a good conversation
and worth your time. My only real complaint is
that even with Jessup present there is no mention
of the rather irritating over darkness of the
pre-credit sequence. I had hoped that this was
a fault of the Image disc but it appears to be
the way the film was shot. Still, this is a minor
problem and shouldn't stop the curious from seeing
this taut little movie.
5/29/06
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