The House of Mortal Sin AKA The Confessional Murders (1976)

Also known as The Confessional Murders, Pete Walkers 1976 movie The House Of Mortal Sin gained Walker unexpected notoriety both during the year of its release, but a further 8 years later when having appeared on video for a couple of years, the movie found itself banned in its native England. Why did the movie find itself outlawed in the UK? Because it committed the ultimate sin, in delivering horror spills it also had a rather hostile stab at the often believed corruptness of the Roman Catholic Church, something they simply would not allow to happen.

Read more: http://cinemaroll.com/horror/the-house-of-mortal-sin-1976/#ixzz1aOtTKBPQ

Die Screaming, Marianne (1971)

I recently started looking at the work of British rough trade director Pete Walker, an individual who during the 1970’s tried to adapt the British horror/thriller genre to be more modern, picking up current issues and giving them a funky twist. Die Screaming, Marianne released back in 1971 was the movie that really put the director on the map, with 

its twisted tale of bizarre practices, betrayal, incest, deception, and mental illness.

Read more: http://cinemaroll.com/horror/die-screaming-marianne-1971/#ixzz1a1auXxlB

The Comeback (1978)

From acclaimed and heavily criticised British director Pete Walker came the 1978 movie The Comeback, a story in which a pop star plans to make a return to the industry after a bad relationship goes wrong. Starring a real life pop star Jack Jones who stars as Nick Cooper, the story to some level was close to home as Jones himself was planning a comeback album, of course his story was far different to Nick Coopers.

British horror of this era was somewhat tale in comparison to American and European horror, Pete Walker single handily changed this making British horror far more extreme, while this would now be welcomed it almost became the death nail for British horror with most of Walkers films becoming either heavily censored or completely banned like the movie Frightmare. The Comeback is one of Walker’s best received movies, but also the movie seen least of all of the directors work.

Read more: http://cinemaroll.com/horror/the-comeback-1978/#ixzz1a1aLhutG

Frightmare (1974)

Few movies stick in mind, especially when it comes to horror. I was given a somewhat liberal upbringing in which from a very early age I was allowed to see horror movies. As a result by the time I reached my mid-teens I was immune to the effects of visual movie horror. But in the early 1990’s I remember classic TV station showing the world premiere of a movie by unusual director Pete Walker called Frightmare, although made nearly 22 years earlier it was the first time that the movie had been allowed to be seen in the UK since its release, the governing body (the BBFC) deciding it was too much for innocent eyes and ears to be subjected too.

Read more: http://cinemaroll.com/horror/frightmare-1974/#ixzz1a1ZeukRq

House Of The Whipcord

In a time where laws were seemingly flaunted revolutionary British director Pete Walker had an answer to the question “What’s the world coming too?” His 1974 movie House Of The Whipcord, which is not I must add anywhere near as seedy as it sounds, finds young women who skate through their crimes with a slap on the wrists and a fine imprisoned in a country dwelling ran by the sinister Mrs. Wakeham.

 

Of all Pete Walker’s offerings House Of The Whipcord has to be the most tongue in cheek, with its main character, the vicious Mrs. Wakeham played by Barbara Markham being based on Mary Whitehouse, a notorious British character who wanted everything offensive to her to be put out of sight. Nothing was sacred from Whitehouse, whom being a normal mother took offence at Britain’s declining standards, or at least that was how she viewed it. The effect Whitehouse had on censorship in the UK is a story far too extreme to tell here, but Walkers puppet master approach to Mrs. Wakeham views is obvious and most striking, because rather like Whitehouse, Wakeham is naive, stupid, and misguided.

 

The set up of the movie is a nice idea, and centres around four characters Wakeham, Bates played by Dorothy Gordon, Walker played by Pete Walker regular Sheila Keith; and finally Justice Bailey (Patrick Barr) an aging, senile man who believes he is serving the public.  Chiefly steered by Wakeham, this quartet carry out extreme ranges of corporal punishment and imprisonment on young women who poke two fingers up at the British legal system. A keen reader Wakeham seeks out cases in the papers of women who get away with what she sees as blue murder, arranging for them to find themselves at her custom built prison.

 

As a second element of humour Walkers tool to get inmates to the prison comes in the form of a supposedly suave and debonair man by the name of Mark E. Desade (get it? No? Same the name allowed) played by Robert Tayman, not that I go eyeing up other men but if this guy has anything at all going for him then I have been elevated to stud status by this movie, needless to say however Desade is obviously successful with his captives in order to keep a pretty full prison for Wakeham.

 

House Of The Whipcord is in the same vein as other Pete Walker movies, pretty harsh to say the least. Another trait they have in common is the unusual and often terrible casting and performances. Rather like Frightmare, and Die Screaming, Marianne; Whipcord sadly falls foul of having a number of terrible actors including Ray Brooks who literally plays the same character he has during his entire career (and that includes Mr. Benn), never a particularly good actor Brooks terrible performance literally reeks here. But it’s the casting of Karan David as Karen that creates the biggest laughs, pretending to be French is a road that this actress should never have pursued, and as the movie progresses it’s blatantly apparent that David lost track of exactly what nationality she was.

 

On the flip side of the coin Sheila Keith gives of a well rounded performance as someone both harsh, but capable of the same sort of tongue in cheek humour as the movies director, I’d go as far as to say that the character she plays of Walker was a self imposed homage by the director himself, even naming her after himself. There is a most wonderful piece where Keith and Bates are trying to flee the police, covered in blood and bruises when pulled over and asked if “Do you mind if I have a few words with you?” by a police officer, this moment so amusing it could come off the back of any Carry On movie, it’s a pure delight.

 

Incest raises a familiar head as it does in a number of Walker movies, here the relationship between a mother and her son is certainly moved into a very suspicious light, and anyone not seeing this is looking at the world through those famous rose tinted glasses. The worst factor is the sheer disgustingness of both the characters, the thought of them engaging in anything other than a platonic relationship extreme enough without them needing to be related.

 

While quite a predictable movie now, back in 1974 Walker used an awful lot of techniques in the movie that are now more commonplace, the result at the time was a shocking wakeup call from British horror. Though never banned when the whole video nasty furore in the UK was underway, it was conveniently arranged that House Of The Whipcord was not seen for a period of about 14 years from the beginning of enforced movie certification. It was not until Nigel Wingrove’s company Redemption formed releasing video’s of movies lost in the passage of time that House Of The Whipcord was not only seen again, but generated a new public love for the movie. 

The House Of Mortal Sin

Also known as The Confessional Murders, Pete Walkers 1976 movie The House Of Mortal Sin gained Walker unexpected notoriety both during the year of its release, but a further 8 years later when having appeared on video for a couple of years, the movie found itself banned in its native England. Why did the movie find itself outlawed in the UK? Because it committed the ultimate sin, in delivering horror spills it also had a rather hostile stab at the often believed corruptness of the Roman Catholic Church, something they simply would not allow to happen.

 

While out shopping, and in a slightly distracted manner Jenny Welch (Susan Penhaligon) steps into the path of an oncoming car, fortunately its driver is a very good one and stops before any damage is done. This isolated incident brings together childhood friends when it transpires that the driver is old school friend Bernard (Norman Eshley) now a priest newly arrived to work in the nearby Roman Catholic Church. Having enjoyed the reunion over a coffee, Jenny is enriched by this reunion; and in celebrating this feeling she heads for the church where Bernard works. Believing that Bernard is giving confession, Jenny heads for the booth where she finds Father Xavier Meldrum (Anthony Sharp). Realising that Jenny has something heavy on her shoulders to offload, Father Meldrum persuades her to give confession, during which she reveals that boyfriend Terry some months earlier made her pregnant and forced her to have an abortion. Unbeknown to Jenny however that is Father Meldrum records all his confessions, and opts to make all of his flock’s and in particular Jenny’s problems disappear, regardless of exactly how he achieves his goals.

 

House Of Mortal Sin, is in many ways unlike a lot of other Walker movies; no lesbian overtones as in House Of The Whipcord, No power drill cannibals as in Frightmare, no incest crazed families as in Die Screaming, Marianne; no House Of Mortal Sin comes off for a large part like a traditional Hammer Horror movie. But from this more traditional shell, Walker splinters something of the insane upon his audience creating a horrific terror in a warm and cosy environment.

 

Sadly this tale of a psychopath priest who will happily kill to protect those who confess to their sins to him, takes a decidedly dull path to its conclusion. Please don’t get me wrong as a whole the movie is a superior if not quirky piece of British filmmaking, what happens with The House Of Mortal Sin is a sad tale of unfulfilled promise. The reason of the downfall is after the best part of an hour of pretty much near blinding, curious, enchanting storytelling; the movie stumbles off down the route of being like any old 70’s horror movie that England turned out during that time, slightly stuffy and incredibly familiar.

 

Until that final portion though I really enjoyed the movie, I loved the thought of this religious character shuffling around in the night snuffing out anyone that interferes with the hopes and dreams of an innocent party; while the movie focuses on Jenny’s story all around you see the wreckage of a dozen other families ripped asunder by Father Meldrum’s unique tool of justice. What of course stands out about the movie is the thought of hindsight, while often in our darkest hours we wish ill of those that offend us deep down in the pit of our stomach we really don’t mean it. Not only does the movie cover that ground, but also looks at the ground of mistaken identity, of people being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and finding themselves caught in a terribly bloody crossfire.

 

Like all other Pete Walker movies the cast are sure-fire products of the day lead actress Susan Penhaligon had shot to fame through the movies The Land That Time Forgot and No Sex Please Were British as well as cameo performances in the likes of Doctor Who and Upstairs Downstairs. Anthony Sharp who played Father Meldrum was a well loved actor of the day that appeared in pretty much any British movie you might find, from A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon to popular re-occurring roles in TV shows like Steptoe And Son, Sharp was a much loved character of the day so his appearance here was most out of character, his real fame however came after his death when he became a bit of a cult hero. Popular actress Stephanie Beacham who had suddenly shot to fame, was only at the beginning of her career here just a few short years after her legendary Playboy centrefold. Norman Eshley took the role of Bernard, an actor who was appearing in two successful British comedy shows of the day Man About The House, and George and Mildred. As well as a scattering of other British stars of the day there was of course a place for Pete Walker favourite Sheila Keith, who here as with all her other Walker collaborations (except House Of The Long Shadows) played a rather understated villain.

 

Unlike a lot of other Walker features the actors here are on fine form, never once did I find myself on the verge of laughter because of a terrible performance, not one piece of ham acting to be found here.

 

As an around piece and in comparison to the dreary Amicus (a similar rival to Hammer, Hammer at this time having fallen into a sudden decline) offerings of the day, The House Of Mortal Sin is a pretty inspiring piece of British horror.

The Comeback

From acclaimed and heavily criticised British director Pete Walker came the 1978 movie The Comeback, a story in which a pop star plans to make a return to the industry after a bad relationship goes wrong. Starring a real life pop star Jack Jones who stars as Nick Cooper, the story to some level was close to home as Jones himself was planning a comeback album, of course his story was far different to Nick Coopers.

 

British horror of this era was somewhat tale in comparison to American and European horror, Pete Walker single handily changed this making British horror far more extreme, while this would now be welcomed it almost became the death nail for British horror with most of Walkers films becoming either heavily censored or completely banned like the movie Frightmare. The Comeback is one of Walker’s best received movies, but also the movie seen least of all of the directors work.

 

What makes The Comeback a strange offering is the casting choices for the movie, joining Jack Jones is Pamela Stephenson one time comedian now psychologist and wife of Scottish comedian Billy Connelly. David Doyle best known as Bosley from Charlie’s Angels stars as Nick Cooper’s agent, and in a fairly shocking moment exposed as a transvestite. Then Bill Owen best known as Comp from Last Of The Summer Wine  provides a sobering straight laced performance as the loving husband of Mrs. B played by regular Walker actress Sheila Keith.  Jack Palance’s daughter Holly Palance playsa most unusual role as a corpse from the movies offset; while popular novelist Peter Turner plays a bizarrely abysmal Harry, Coopers right hand man. Finally you have June Chadwick, who would later appear in the Sci-Fi spectacular V. In fairness if you are not from the UK or up on UK culture this might not mean very much to you but to put it most effectively it’s a collection of the most unlikely people gathered together for a shockingly graphic horror movie. It was a strange thing that Walker had, a certain hold over certain celebrities that he could somehow command the most unlikely people to star in his incredibly low budget movies, most of his movies are like a who’s who of British culture at that particular point in time, and here with the Comeback you get the most striking pointer to what was going on in British society.

 

Trivia put aside The Comeback begins with the estranged partner being horrendously hacked to death by a crazed old woman with a sickle. Unbeknown of the death of Gail in his penthouse on Londons Docklands, Cooper returns home from the States (his homeland) to work on his new album . Webster Jones or Webby, Cooper’s agent finds a county house mansion for Cooper to work on where he won’t be disturbed, however upon arrival he finds he is haunted by sounds and images from the past. As Cooper begins to have a mental breakdown, the roles of his careful aging housekeepers Mr & Mrs B change, but can Coopers career be stopped from falling into freefall?

 

I appreciate that the storyline might not sound the most compelling of movie offerings, but things are surprisingly better than they first seem. After a really quite shocking murder (considering this is British) things for a time slump into almost soap opera style storytelling, however as the story moves full circle it gets really quite extreme.

 

What I find most strange about the movie is the slowly rotting body of Gail that we keep seeing in quick flashes, and it’s not too long before she is joined by another body.  It’s hard to put into words the way this looks, or even to describe the impact and shocking nature the movie delivered on an unsuspecting British public.

 

It’s a strange combination of melodrama and extreme horror that to be honest I have never seen before, moving from the most horrific extremes, to kitchen sink drama at the drop of a hat. The scenes of Cooper and Linda (Stephenson) at times are almost painfully normal to watch as they sit and contemplate each other’s pasts, and Cooper shows of the sort of bizarre and totally anal sort of self possessiveness that you come to expect from medium level celebrities. The story darts about from one to the other at the drop of a hat, with the most unusual red herrings thrown in left right and centre to really keep your mind thinking in overtime.

 

I cannot pretend for a minute that in my opinion this is one of Pete Walkers finest, for me that crown will always go to Die Screaming, Marianne; but The Comeback is without a doubt one of the most unusually refreshing movies of the 1970’s. It has a sort of charm and charisma that literally puts the movie in a category all of its own that no country in the world has ever delivered something comparable. The gore is extreme, the language likewise for the movies location in time. All the while you’re getting this incredibly dark and sinister view of England in the 1970’s; and this makes the movie all the more special.

 

The cast whether good or bad in their acting add to the unique flavour of the movie, Sheila Keith plays a typically Pete Walker leading lady role as an aging woman with a secret, while the film is somehow stolen by Bill Owen’s unique secret. But of all the bizarre images that you take from the movie by far the most striking is Charlies Angels Bosley in drag, by far the most frightening (and I don’t mean that sarcastically) image to take from the film.

 

Frightmare

Few movies stick in mind, especially when it comes to horror. I was given a somewhat liberal upbringing in which from a very early age I was allowed to see horror movies. As a result by the time I reached my mid-teens I was immune to the effects of visual movie horror. But in the early 1990’s I remember classic TV station showing the world premiere of a movie by unusual director Pete Walker called Frightmare, although made nearly 22 years earlier it was the first time that the movie had been allowed to be seen in the UK since its release, the governing body (the BBFC) deciding it was too much for innocent eyes and ears to be subjected too.

 

Frightmare begins as it means to go on with the death of onetime Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs, killed after a visit to a funfair to see a clairvoyant. This opening scene was a shot in colour but later turned to black and white because the vision of gore you see was just too much for that moment in time.  This event sees the condemning to prison of an unknown party, and at this point the movie moves forward from the 1950’s to the 1970’s. Frightmare is all about extreme family secrets and a thirst for something that you really are not meant to have, cannibalism.

 

Of all the Pete Walker movies of this time, Frightmare offers the most striking vision with some of the worst acting. The memories of Frightmare really stayed with me for years after seeing it, and were given a stark reminder when I made my most recent return to this horror movie as part of a self imposed Pete Walker season.

 

The story of Frightmare is incredibly slow moving, but this is not a criticism; because this slow delivery makes the terror at the end all the more striking. But don’t be fooled into thinking the movie is about build up, all the way through there is an unhealthy amount of deaths to contend with, and some really quite extreme gore.

 

It is rumoured that director Abel Ferrara took a liking to this movie when conjuring up the story to his long banned movie Driller Killer, and as the movies killer moves through a choice of weaponry onto the electric drill you can see some real similarities, hard to believe that a small budget movie not really seen in America would be responsible for such a thing.

 

Pete Walker’s regular cast favourite Sheila Keith plays Dorothy Yates the movies cannibal and drill obsessive, I have ruined nothing in this reveal, it’s made blatantly obvious from the movies offset just who the villain of the piece is. But in Dorothy you feel a touch of sadness because the character is a victim of mental illness, and it’s this slow development and understanding of mental illness that give Frightmare its extreme but winning formula. Upon first sight this aging woman seems charming, but as the “headaches” occur you can see the delivery of messages into Dorothy’s head. Sheila Keith was the sort of actress that could be both charming and menacing, an aspect that director was more than aware of casting her more often than not in his movies as the villain.

 

Where you get this tug of love situation with the movie is in her husband Edmund Yates played by Rupert Davies, you discover that despite the fact that he never committed murder, that he shared the same sentence in prison as Dorothy for being fully in the knowledge of her actions. As the movie progresses your heart does go out to Edmund as you can see the years of recovery that he believes Dorothy has had falling around his feet. You see him wrestling with his emotions as he tries to prevent the inevitable all the time just thinking it’s on the horizon, unaware this time that Dorothy is actually killing.

 

But this is not a two way relationship Jackie (Deborah Fairfax) and Debbie (Kim Butcher) are the grown up children of the couple, and it seems that Debbie the younger of the two sisters has the same sort of diabolical thirst for blood and raw meat that her mother has.

 

Frightmare is 34 years on (at the time of writing) pretty extreme, in fact it’s not an uneven offering to partner off with movies like Saw and Hostel, if you have seen either they you might be just starting to get a feel of exactly how hardcore this movie was for the time.

 

While I cannot say that Frightmare scared me, I can easily see it scaring some, yes the acting is terrible, but the gore is extreme and although I was not frightened by the movie it is one that I will never forget for as long as I live.

Die Screaming, Marianne

I recently started looking at the work of British rough trade director Pete Walker, an individual who during the 1970’s tried to adapt the British horror/thriller genre to be more modern, picking up current issues and giving them a funky twist. Die Screaming, Marianne released back in 1971 was the movie that really put the director on the map, with its twisted tale of bizarre practices, betrayal, incest, deception, and mental illness.

 

Opening with Go Go dancer Marianne (Susan George) begins the movie in a bedroom having seduced a sailor the night before in a small Algarve town. Rudely awoken though by the arrival of a shady looking Portuguese man, Marianne sneaks out through an open window to escape, the reason for this escape is shrouded in secrecy. Walking down the road she encounters Sebastian (Christopher Sandford), who whisks her away back to England so she can set up a new life. On the day of her marriage to Sebastian Marianne suspects something is wrong, and falls into the arms of Eli Frome (the late Barry Evans). But as her sinister past in Portugal catches up with her, Marianne, Eli and Sebastian are all forced to go to Portugal to face the sinister Judge, and his daughter Hildegard, who just so transpire to be Marianne’s father and sister.

 

Die Screaming, Marianne is much criticised movie that has its heart in the right place, but it’s soul buried elsewhere thanks for its appalling acting skills, and Walker’s then harsh direction. But with this taken into account I really enjoyed the movie, I found it a touch refreshing although at times a little predictable.

 

The movie despite being a British offering has something incredibly European about it, almost as a reflection of the increased interest in the European horror and thriller movies of Italy. What is good though is unlike so many of these Brit movies that look like Brits abroad, Walker direction allows for a genuinely European look. The movie is split 50/50 between time in Portugal and in England.

 

For fans of 70’s cinema this is almost like the ultimate resource, you get a very precise view of life in England, specifically Brighton and London during the 1970’s. It’s fascinating to look at the way the streets look, the movies at the cinemas, posters, and newspaper stand signs. While all around are the tell tale signs of a rapidly changing society, drugs and free love both hinted at but never properly addressed.

 

Back onto the movie in general and despite my earlier comment about the poor acting I should add that both Susan George and Barry Evans both put their heart and soul into the movie; George shows the sort of feistiness she returned to later in the same year with Sam Peckinpah’s Cornish Western Straw Dogs, to be fair she is where she is this movie simply due to her smouldering sexuality, and this is played up more than her acting skill. While Evan’s is essentially used as a tool for the movie, but his performances is straight up, this was actually the last serious movie Evans starred in. The acting comedy comes from a quartet of clowns; Leo Genn a familiar horror actor delivers an abysmally creepy performance as the Judge. Christopher Sandford a DJ from the likes of Radio Caroline is just diabolical, that’s if you can get beyond the humour of his hair. Judy Huxtable here nearing the end of her acting career is just completely vacant; she cannot have the decency to even be attacked in a decent manner, as Marianne’s murderously obsessed sister she actually comes across as more of a drag queen than a woman, a very bizarre casting indeed. Finally Kenneth Hendal plays the dodgy butler Rodriguez, here tanned up so that he looks Portuguese but is so obviously British.

 

The story goes well beyond the boundaries of typical British fare of the era; it’s an incredibly sexual piece that once having broken the boundaries of sexual inhibition pushes the envelope a bit further by having a vicious stab at incest. It’s hard to believe that the same country that delivered stodgy looking Hammer horror movies around the same time was capable of delivering this sort of very new terror, although personally it gave me no fears.

 

Despite the flaws I really enjoyed Die Screaming, Marianne; it was a really heavily layered movie with an awful lot of depth to it, it to some degree seemed like two movies jammed into one. The story is well developed, with well rounded corners all the way, although there are a few moments where you almost enter cartoon filmmaking because it seems that script writer Murray Smith literally though on his feet as the script continued. The one thing that let the movie down are those abysmal performances, and even though I did start to warm to Leo Genn his appearances on screen were suddenly cut short just as his performance improved, only allowing you to remember the negatives.

 

 

The House Of The Long Shadows

When it comes to British horror movies the two houses that will come to mind would ultimately be Hammer, and the slightly smaller Amicus; but there was one other force frantically trying to put British horror back on the map during the 1970’s. Pete Walker a man who has a love of both horror and the soft porn genre’s tried to create a hybrid of the two and through the 70’s turned out a heavy volume of strange horror offerings in a bid to compete with the far superior American and Italian influence flooding the market. With movies like The Comeback, Die Screaming Marianne, Schizo, Frightmare, and House Of The Whipcord; his movies were valued by fans but hated by the BBFC (British Board Of Film Classification), with every single one being subject to the harshest of censorship.

 

In 1983 Pete Walker sick of having his films butchered, made his final movie as a director The House Of The Long Shadows, a star studded traditional horror movie aimed not at the minority audience, but the whole family; in an unusual move the BBFC stamped it with a PG certificate in the UK passing it without cuts. Sadly however Cannon Pictures UK ran into financial trouble and the in the UK the movie hard one of the shorted cinema runs for a movie in that time period. Lost in the ether the movie returned to haunt late night movie fans, and its video release in 1988 was the first movie to be released to the general public to buy in a clear video case, making it a success for VCI (Video Collection International) five years after it was released.

 

Moving on to the movie itself and it’s a proper traditional horror, successful author Kenneth Magee (Desi Arnaz) makes a bet with his publisher that he can write a bestselling novel in just 24 hours, heading for the British countryside to get the right inspiration for a Wuthering Heights style novel. Arriving in a remote Welsh manor after a series of bizarre events, he is surprised to find the supposedly abandoned house still occupied by servants Victoria (Sheila Keith) and Lord Grisbane (John Carradine). After the initial upset having realised he is not alone, Magee becomes more and more distressed as well as more distracted from his work as the bad weather brings a flood of surprise visitors to the manor including Mary Norton (Julie Peasgood), Lionel (Vincent Price), Corrigan (Christopher Lee), and Sebastian (Peter Cushing) ; with such horror legends all present it would be rude to not have a killer too.

 

The House Of The Long Shadows really is nothing like Walkers traditional output, it is very much the sort of classic horror we are familiar seeing with the likes of Cushing, Lee, and Price; lots of loud banging music to create effect, thunderstorms, and horrific weather, and nowhere a nipple to be seen. Essentially despite its horror elements, House Of the Long Shadows is actually a very nice movie, no real horror, no real scares, just three of horrors best acting legends hamming it up in an almost homage to the Great British horror era where England ruled the world when it came to horror (1950’s-1960’s) .

 

There is a considerable amount of humour in the movie, an early victim of the killer Victoria spends the first portion of the movie offering every guest hot punch, getting most annoyed at the colourful language (anyone who has seen Frightmare will find humour in this fact alone), and singing like a banshee; when she falls foul of the killer Sebastian simply states “Poor Victoria, he must have heard her singing!” a statement that made me laugh 20 years ago when I first saw the movie, and yesterday when I saw it again (again for the first time in 20 years). When not having a knock at Sheila Keith, there are some highly amusing disguises that raise a little giggle, and some incredibly over the top acting from Ex-Hollyoaks star Peasgood, who has now thankfully given up acting in favour of being a sex therapist, hopefully she is better at that career choice.

 

Arnaz is an unusual casting for movie, the actor literally lived his life getting work off the back of his successful father; Arnaz’s only claim to fame (if you call it fame) is that he was a star in the ill fated 1983 TV show Automan. His lack of popularity is abundantly clear here, as he stumbles around his lines often illegibly, and leaves you with a pretty bad taste in your mouth; thankfully the weight and experience of the cast veterans, and I should not forget Carradine that keep the movie going at a bustling speed.

 

Having taken its time telling the story 50 minutes in the first death occurs and from this point you have 35 minutes and a pretty high body count to take you to the movies end. And the end for someone will be an unexpected and enjoyable twist, having already weaved you in a number of directions with a highly contorting story.

 

25 years after the movie was made to be perfectly honest the cheese element stands out a mile, however it’s still lovely to see. The charm of the movie is that it really was the last of the traditional British style of horror, and like its title it casts a long shadow across the movie industry. House Of The Shadows is an enjoyable movie, and a clear indication that despite its death the British horror industry still had something slightly unique to offer, the uniqueness being in its final twist.

 

House Of The Long Shadows is a movie that is now “In The Public Domain” with nobody seemingly wanting to assume rights over the movie. This means you can either buy an old VHS release, or a Public Domain DVD (probably with VHS quality) from the likes of Ebay, or even download the movie without fear of persecution.