Highly Overrated But Still Good

As Good As It Gets

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

House of Whipcord is set in England & starts in London at a advertising photographers party, there Tony (Ray Brooks) tells the story of how he & an eighteen year old French model named Anne-Marie Di Verney (Penny Irving) were arrested & fined £10 for taking some pictures in public while Anne-Marie was topless. Later that night Anne-Marie is seduced by the mysterious & handsome Mark E. Desade (Robert Tayman) who ask's her to spend the weekend with him at his mother's house in the country, Anne-Marie accepts but once they arrive at Desade's house Anne-Marie is stripped & locked in a cell. The old house used to be a jail & is now run by sadistic prison wardens as a means to punish those who got off lightly in the regular courts, the whole affair is overseen by Mrs. Wakehurst (Barbara Markham) & her old, blind husband Judge Bailey (Patrick Barr) who passes judgement & suitable punishment to any offenders. Anne-Marie finds herself locked up, tortured & abused as she tries to find a way to escape...This British production was produced & directed by Pete Walker & wasn't quite what I expected, in one way that is a positive yet in another it's a negative as while House of Whipcord is a more meaningful film than I had thought the sleaze & exploitation aspects suffer as a result. House of Whipcord feels like a 70's British set women in prison film with a bizarre back-story of various sadistic prison guards who have set their own jail up seemingly to punish attractive young girls. The script & sensibilities of House of Whipcord clearly sides with those who are tortured, imprisoned & repressed. The script presents those in power using it for their own gratification & abusing it, something that feels all too real although obviously not to such an extreme level as seen here. House of Whipcord has a very strong anti-conservative & institutional theme running throughout. The script attacks the strict moral codes of an older generation who seek to punish the sexual freedom & moral abandonment of a younger generation (the fact that the Judge is literally blind is surely no coincidence?) & it makes it's point effectively enough, the Judge who keeps passing down sentence with utmost authority despite no-one being in the room to hear him is a good moment to emphasise the pointlessness in his actions. There are a few things that don't make sense, if these guards are so interested in justice & sticking by the rule why break them so often? Why only punish young girls? Why on such a small scale? What did they really hope to achieve? At just over 100 minutes House of Whipcord moves along at a decent pace, it does get a bit repetitive & the lack of sleaze is a bit disappointing but it's a more thoughtful film than I had expected. The final twenty or so minutes features the search & finding of Anne-Marie & a slight shift in tone to a thriller that certainly isn't as effective as it's first two thirds.I am not sure if it's the copy that I saw but the nighttime scenes set outside are really dark & hard to see what's going on, filmed on location in London & in the Forest of Dean in Gloustershire this looks quite good & has reasonable production values. There is a bit of nudity, a whipping scene & a hanging but little else in the way of graphic sleaze. House of Whipcord has that 70's look & feel which suits the material perfectly, I can't imagine this being set in contemporary times.Probably shot on a low budget the acting is alright, in fact it's better than it has any right to be as the entire cast play it deadly serious. All the main players put in good, if somewhat demented performances.House of Whipcord is a better film than I thought it would be, it has more meaning & depth than you may initially expect but the lack of any true horror or sleaze doesn't help it. An obvious attack on censorship & conservatism the opening of the film has text that reads '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.' which is surely the complete opposite what Walker meant as House of Whipcord is the type of film that would give them a heart attack!

Written by David McGillivray, clearly talentless porn 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 nude 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.

Naive, young, gentle-hearted, beautiful French model, Ann-Marie Di Verney(Penny Irving)is drawn to a dark and mysterious "writer", Mark E Desade(Robert Tayman)after meeting him at a party, later(..after a date)agreeing to meet his mother outside of London, despite knowing little about him. Ann-Marie's pal and roommate, Julia(Ann Michelle)doesn't like the idea of leaving with a man she has just met and these worries come to fruition when Mark takes her to an abandoned institution which works as a cover for a hostile prison for "immoral girls not fit for society who must be punished into submission". Mark's mother, Mrs Wakehurst(Barbara Markham)was once a prison governess who lost her job after her aggressive torturous methods towards a French inmate ended in death. The elderly, blind Justice Bailey(Patrick Barr), whose mind is slipping into senility, once holding a prominent position, is now operating as the secret prison judge, having left his wife for Wakehurst after getting her off for her previous misdeeds regarding the murder of the girl(..the penalty being the loss of her license, and the source of her deep rooted, and thriving bitterness and hatred for "loose women"). Their marriage has worsened substantially over the years, and we discover that Mark is their illegitimate son(..there are also disturbing incestual undertones eluded to later on) Forced against her will into an illegal imprisonment, Ann-Marie notices other girls that have met these particular circumstances as well..it seems Mark's job is to lure women to this place so that they can be tried and convicted in some sort of bogus sentencing, a ceremony so ridiculous(..Wakehurst must now inform of her husband of the lines he's supposed to say due to his forgetfulness)it borders on parody. You can only imagine how shocking and surreal such a situation can be. Told not to speak unless spoken to, given very little to eat, and a penalty system for bad behavior(#1:Solitary confinement, #2:A flogging, & #3:Death by hanging), Ann-Marie will have to figure out some way to escape or else face the dire consequences of her current predicament. Working with fellow prisoners who have had enough of their cruel mistreatment at the hands of Wakehurst and her unpleasant guards, Walker(Sheila Keith)and Bates(Dorothy Gordon), Ann-Marie will attempt to break free from the harsh confinements of such a bleak and unfriendly environment. Meanwhile, Julia confides in her lover, Tony(Ray Brooks)regarding Ann-Marie's whereabouts setting out to find her if she can, attempting to discover just who Mark is and his location.Appropriately grim women-in-prison film throwing a young lamb into a den of wolves. Barbara Markham is quite impressive as the diabolical(..with homicidal tendencies and a yearning to see the pretty deteriorate)warden who hides behind this cloak of morality, wielding her power as if chosen by God to reform those deemed unfit to exist, when in reality she enjoys making girls suffer. The unbridled sadism, buried underneath this cold and calculating execution by the warden and her staff, really has you pitying poor Ann-Marie, who really is a sweet-hearted teenage girl who isn't ashamed of her body. Penny Irving positively glows in the opening scenes, a very vulnerable, somewhat bubbly girl whose modeling career is seen as a blight on society(..Walker obviously wishes to, along with writer David McGillivray, create a film exposing authoritarian types who use their power and code of ethics as a tool to discriminate, as the hypocrites they are)by certain people who really wish to punish and harm because of the thrills that such methods provides. Sheila Keith is particularly memorable as Walker, an obvious lesbian who harbours a lust for Ann-Marie, but hates her at the same time for the type she represents. Through facial movements and specific gestures, Sheila Keith is also able to show her attraction to Ann-Marie, but, at the same time, we see the conflicting repulsion that soon overcomes her. It's a very convincing performance that can elicit chills. The film doesn't actually dwell too much on the whip flogging, although Walker establishes the potency of it's use very well showing whelps and bruises on those victimized. There's a certain hopelessness that permeates throughout Walker's film for Ann-Marie as she is constantly on the verge of escape only to be ensnared right back into the snake pit by unforeseen circumstances. Thanks to cinematographer Peter Jessop's lighting and the miserable aura of the institution setting, Wakehurst's prison is quite a morose and unforgiving place and you can do nothing but feel for those trapped within it's cells. Walker really wishes to keep the indelible image of the hangman's noose in our minds, knowing that this method of execution has been used(..we witness a prisoner sentenced to hanging for attempting to steal a piece of bread, and the failed operation to sneak her away from the death chamber)before and could be Ann-Marie's fate if Wakehurst has anything to say about it. Walker alternates between Ann-Marie's plight and Julia in London growing more concerned about her friend's condition and reasons for not communicating somehow. It's a form of manipulation, of course, allowing the framework to advance regarding Julia being Ann-Marie's only hope(..another form of manipulation is Walker establishing Ann-Marie's potential getaway thanks to a truck driver nearby the Wakehurst estate). Stanley Myers score exceptionally conveys the mood of the film's plot all too well. Robert Tayman has quite a malevolent presence, despite his handsome allure which draws women like Ann-Marie to their doom. Jessop has a way of lighting Tayman that gives off a sinister intent, and you can just sense that this poor girl, under his spell, is like a fly caught in the spider's web. Penny Irving is quite uninhibited in this film, not afraid to show her gorgeous naked body, including a rather uncomfortable disrobing scene where she's forced to remove her clothes by Walker and Bates before being taken to her cell.

A young French model (Penny Irving), resident in London having just completed a controversial photo shoot for a men's magazine, is approached at a party by a charismatic oddball calling himself Mark E. Desade (geddit?) whose dating techniques are strange, to say the least. He invites her to meet his parents, and she foolishly agrees - turns out the old couple (he's blind and senile, she's a sadistic retired prison warder) are running their own private prison in the middle of nowhere with the aim of punishing 'immoral' behaviour with beatings, solitary confinement, humiliations and compulsory Bible lessons. A couple of equally deranged guards are on hand to guide these wayward young things back onto the straight and narrow, along with several menacing rats. Don't ask. HOUSE OF WHIPCORD poured napalm on troubled waters with its original release in 1974, when the hang-'em-and-flog-'em brigade were at their most vocal and the likes of Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford ("Lord Porn", according to Private Eye magazine) were keeping a beady eye on the increasing amount of sex, violence and bad language on television and in the movies. Pete Walker's bleak and disturbing take on vigilante justice gets the flesh crawling and the nerves jangling like precious few British horror flicks before or since, offering little comfort to the viewer as a series of ghastly coincidences, shocking deaths and unexpected twists take us ever closer to the resolutely downbeat ending. Ironically (hopefully) dedicated to the vocal minority who find sentencing too soft and the law largely impotent, WHIPCORD isn't for everyone - the faint of heart should steer well clear - but offers an upsetting glimpse into the heart of darkness for the curious. Ann Michelle and Penny Irving are surprisingly good in their dramatic roles, but the film is stolen by Barbara Markham, Patrick Barr and Sheila Keith, chewing the scenery as the governess, the helpless judge and the most zealous warden respectively. Ray Brooks (the voice of MR BENN) has a few good scenes as Michelle's sex-mad boyfriend.