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House Of Whipcord
[Shriek Show]
1974; color
Directed by Pete Walker
Starring: Barbara Markham, Patrick Barr, Ray Brooks, Ann Michelle, Sheila Keith & Dorothy Gordon
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I definitely had some trouble getting my head wrapped around House Of Whipcord at first but, despite the hugely predictable plot, it ended up being a fairly memorable film. Ostensibly a women-in-prison flick, HOW falls in line with the tradition of the '60s Olga movies (which pretty much helped to establish the extreme side of the roughie genre) but has a lot more in common with the viciousness of the first Ilsa movie, which it predates by a year. The story revolves around a French model named Ann-Marie who has moved to London and, in the course of her work, gets busted for public nudity during a photoshoot. (Ann Marie is played by Brit actress Penny Irving; probably most known for being the ditzy Miss Bakewell in the long-running BBC comedy Are You Being Served?) We find out all of this in backstory, as a blown up pic of her being arrested is revealed at a party, complete with funny talking balloons added for comic effect. Ann-Marie is embarrassed by all of this and to distract herself ends up talking to a mysterious stranger, whom she later meets for a date. The guy's name is… wait for it… Mark E. Desade. (Interestingly, no one in the movie seems to get the joke.) After telling Ann-Marie he'd like to take her to meet his parents, the two set off for the countryside. After a long ride, during which Mark becomes standoff-ish and almost sinister, they arrive at a huge, ominous estate and Mark tells Ann-Marie to wait outside. He drives off, presumably to park the car, and a matronly woman ushers her in. Almost immediately she's confronted by a creepy warden-like woman, who informs her she's now a prisoner and must do as she's told. Ann-Marie is more than confused, begins to protest, and is summarily forced to strip, given a sack dress and "sentenced" in a "court" presided over by a blind old man and his domineering, evil wife. Apparently, as we later learn, the wife was bounced from the prison system for treating prisoners too harshly (one of her charges died), and she and her husband (a retired judge) have set up their own private prison outside the law to deal with young girls whom they feel have committed morally offensive crimes and been dealt with to softly by the court system. They have their son, Mark, bring the girls then they slowly break them physically and mentally until they commit three offenses (like talking or eating too much bread), at which time they're hung. Ann-Marie refuses to be resigned to her fate and tries to escape. At the same time, after she's been missing from her roommate's flat for nine days, everyone back in London begins to get suspicious as to her whereabouts and the mysterious Mark who she went off with. Eventually her roommate figures out where she is, mistakenly believing she'd been in a car accident and taken to a clinic. When she goes to visit she spies Mark and all hell begins to break loose. Shortly thereafter, her boyfriend and a bunch of policemen force their way in, save her and the remaining three or four girls, and cart off the dead. (Which now includes Mark and his mum.) Giving away the ending isn't much of a big deal because, despite the previously mentioned predictability, there's enough weirdness going on to make this recommended viewing for fans of the WIP and roughie genres. My only real complaint, and it's one I have with a lot of UK films, is that 100 minutes is just too damn long; 15 minutes or more could have easily been trimmed for pacing's sake. Overall, it's another unique entry in the catalog of director Pete Walker.
—the Kommandant
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