Anthony Sharp stars as a blackmailing father confessor in Pete Walker’s HOUSE OF MORTAL SIN.
HOUSE OF MORTAL SIN
aka THE CONFESSIONAL 1975, Redemption, 104m 49s, $24.95, BD-A By Budd Wilkins
HOUSE OF MORTAL SIN shares more than the first half of its title with producer/director Pete Walker’s earlier HOUSE OF WHIPCORD (1974). It can be said to complete an “institutional abuse trilogy” begun with that film. WHIPCORD tackles the cor- ruption inherent in a privatized justice system, taking potshots along the way at the conserva- tive Christian “moral rearma- ment” movement then ramping up in tandem with Mary White- house’s campaign against filmic filth. FRIGHTMARE (aka COVER UP, also 1974) thumbs its nose at what soon would be extolled as the virtues of “family values,” as well as laying bare some obvi- ous lapses in national mental
health care. And HOUSE OF MORTAL SIN throws opening the confessional doors on the hypoc- risy and hysteria that arise from sexual repression within the Catholic Church.
In a particularly cold open, we see the headlong flight of a young woman, Valerie Davey (FRIGHT- MARE’s Kim Butcher), from the supposed sanctuary of the con- fessional back to her upstairs bedroom; moments later, the girl plunges to her death on the court- yard below. An open window rus- tling the pages of a spread-open Bible—and a glimpse of William Blake’s famous engraving “The Ancient of Days” hanging on the wall—play up the religious con- notations of this tortured soul’s rash act. The story proper begins post-credits with another collision (this time a near one) as Vanessa Welch (Stephanie Beacham from DRACULA A.D. 1972) almost runs down Father Bernard Cutler
(Norman Eshley). When he proves to be an old friend (a former suitor, in fact), she in- vites him round to her trendy Richmond shop-cum-flat. Vanessa’s sister Jenny (Susan Penhaligon) has problems of her own with boyfriend Terry (Stewart Bevan) and an unwanted preg- nancy. When she goes to talk to Father Cutler, she ends up un- burdening her sins instead to Father Xavier Meldrum (Anthony Sharp, the warden from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE—an unwise choice, as it happens, since Meldrum has a nasty habit of tape-recording confessions for the purposes of blackmail. Father Meldrum fast develops a fixation on Jenny that sees him stalking her along the high street, cas- sock flapping behind him like Dracula’s cape, before tossing the contents of a boiling coffee pot (with a nod to THE BIG HEAT) in the face of the man
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