Peter Walker
Related: British cinema - British exploitation - women in prison films - exploitation film -
Making Mischief The Cult Films Of Pete Walker () - Steve Chibnall [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Biography
Pete Walker (born 1939) is a British film director and producer, specialising in thrillers.
His films include House of Mortal Sin, Frightmare, House of Whipcord and Die Screaming, Marianne. Recurring cast members in Walker films include Sheila Keith and Andrew Sachs. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Walker_%28director%29 [Feb 2006]
Profile
Britain's Greatest Exploitation Film Director!
'I deliberately rub people up the wrong way,' Pete Walker once remarked, 'I want them to come into the cinema and be shocked.' And shock them he did. No other British film-maker achieved the level of transgression that Walker regularly delivered to cinema-goers in the 1970s.
Beginning his career by making 'skinflicks', Walker went on to direct a trio of bona fide horror film classics. House of Whipcord, Frightmare and House of Mortal Sin probe beneath the glossy surface of the permissive society to expose a malevolent underworld of madness, obsession and vindictive violence.
Making Mischief is the first major critical study of the controversial director, and it has received the full cooperation of Pete Walker and his screenwriters. Extracts from a five hour interview with Walker appear throughout the book which also contains a wealth of previously unpublished photographs and, for the first time, reveals details of the Sex Pistols movie A Star is Dead, which Walker was about to direct when the Pistols split.
About the author
Steve Chibnall teaches Film and Cultural Studies and co-ordinates the British Cinema and Television Research Group at De Montfort University, Leicester. --http://www.fabpress.com/perl/search.pl?CO=FAB016 [Apr 2005]
House of Whipcord (1974) - Peter Walker [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Making Mischief The Cult Films Of Pete Walker () - Steve Chibnall (FAB Press).
Pete Walker is one of England’s more interesting directors. From the late sixties until the early eighties he was responsible for some of the wildest stories ever to hit the silver screen. From sex comedies to horror (often combining the two), Pete Walker had a flair that thrilled fans and sickened mainstream critics. This is an outstanding overview of his colorful career. Excellent observations of his classics, House Of Whipcord, Frightmare, and Flesh & Blood Show, as well as his little seen (on our shores, unfortunately) sexploitation gems. With Pete Walker helping Chibnall get the facts straight, this is a very informative book and an excellent overall look at the British sex/horror scene. Add in the mix nearly every page has photos from one of Pete Walker’s films and this is as much fun to look at as it is to read. --http://videocrypt.com/BOOK.html [Apr 2005]
The suppression of female sexuality is the critical subtext of the British exploitation horror film The House of Whipcord (Peter Walker, 1974.) In the film a woman and husband, banished from their positions in the British court house because of corruption, run their own secret court-prison for women of lax moral conduct. They rid the world of sexual liberation by sending out their attractive son to swinging London as bait to return with young, sexually active women, who are then detained as prisoners. Punishment for not abiding by their ridiculously strict prison rules escalates from solitary confinement (1st offence), flogging (second offense), to death by hanging (third offense). The film was made as an unabashed exploitation film, complete with sadomasochism, incest, and (slight) female nudity, but below the exploitation is a social critique of what director Walker saw in the late 1960's, early 1970's as an increasingly sexually and politically repressive British society. -- Donato Totaro, 2002 via http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen/final_girl.html [Apr 2005]
your Amazon recommendations