Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!.
There was a time in the 1960s when a particular brand of movie fan wanting a thrill looked for a particular genre known as the “nudie cutie,” which is exactly what you think it was. Those who didn’t get enough of a thrill from basic titillation went for the similar but different subgenre known as “roughies,” which featured all of the nudity with a lot more violence. What we get in a film like House of Whipcord is essentially a roughie with a lot less nudity. The plot, though, is essentially a “beautiful women behind bars” story, but without the sex. After all, we still need to be mildly respectable for the British public.
House of Whipcord will be about the plight of Ann-Marie Di Verney (Penny Irving), a At a gallery showing, she is shocked to discover that her photographer boyfriend is displaying a photo of her being arrested for public nudity, a crime for which she had to pay a small fine. Embarrassed by this, she dumps her boyfriend, but then immediately finds herself attracted to another partygoer, a guy named Mark (Robert Tayman).
There are many things that House of Whipcord could be said to be, but subtle is not one , of the, because Mark soon gives us his full name as Mark E. Desade. In fact, this is lampshaded rather than glossed over. We’re all going to be aware that Mark has named himself after the Marquis de Sade. After a date, Mark offers to help Ann-Marie avoid the scandal by taking her to his family’s country house for the weekend.
Of course, this is a ruse. What Mark actually does is procure young, scandalous women for his mother Margaret (Barbara Markham). We learn over the course of the movie that Margaret was once the matron of a girls’ reform school. She lost this job over the death of a young girl who she claimed committed suicide, but whom she actually killed and framed to look like a suicide. Now, operating from a country mansion that has been converted into a sort of prison, Margaret jails young women who have offended her sensibilities. What Mark doesn’t know, and what her blind and senile former judge husband (Patrick Barr) doesn’t know is that Margaret isn’t actually attempting to reform these girls.
The reality is that Margaret is torturing them, starving them, and if they get out of line three times, murdering them by hanging them in a form of execution. This is the world that Ann-Marie finds herself thrust into, and it’s soon evident that it’s not going to take her long to rack up three strikes.
The only possibility Ann-Marie has of surviving, provided she is unable to escape on her own, is from her friend Julia (Ann Michelle) and her boyfriend Tony (Ray Brooks), who realize after a few days that Ann-Marie hasn’t come back from her weekend away with Mark. It’s Julia who start doing the real detective work to figure out where Ann-Marie might be, but of course time is running out.
That’s really it. The real question with House of Whipcord is who it is made for. For anyone who doesn’t want to see the sort of women-behind-bars violence of women getting whipped and mistreated this is a no-go from the very beginning and for obvious reasons. For the person who is looking for something along the lines of the roughie subcategory, there’s not nearly enough here to make this worthwhile. Aside from a few moments of nudity, the most titillating thing about the movie is the racy name, with all of the dark BDSM pleasures that the name inspires.
The truth is that House of Whipcord isn’t a bad film; it just appears to not really know what its audience is supposed to be. Someone wanting to see nasty women being rightly punished will be disappointed since none of the women being held captive are that bad. One of them is a shoplifter, for instance, and Ann-Marie is embarrassed at the photo that landed her in the pseudo-prison. And while the premise is at least interesting, Mark has to be one of the dumbest movie characters of his decade for not figuring out what is going on.
And that’s really it. This isn’t a bad movie; it’s just not a movie that ever figured out who its for.
Why to watch House of Whipcord: A different spin on the “women behind bars” subgenre
Why not to watch: Who was this made for?
Hmm I don't know if this one would be for me. Your review did make me think about Fresh, because that friend also did most of the detective work to find her imprisoned bestie.
ReplyDeleteI can't really comment since I haven't seen Fresh yet, but it's on the list.
DeleteYou can easily miss this one. I genuinely can't figure out the intended audience for it. It's too racy for a lot of people and not nearly enough for the people attracted to the seamier side of the film swimming pool.
I don't know if I will want to see this but your review title did have me singing that song. I love Culture Club as I grew up on them as a kid. They're still awesome.
ReplyDeleteI came of age in the '80s and grew up hand in hand with MTV, so I get what you mean, even if my tastes were more DEVO and Thomas Dolby.
DeleteI love those guys as well. Devo did a great cover of "Head Like a Hole" for the film Supercop with Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh, and Maggie Cheung. An unusual cover from one of Trent Reznor's influences.
DeleteDEVO was wildly underrated. Freedom of Choice was a far better album than most people remember.
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