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Released by: Severin Films
Released on: October 8th, 2013.
Director: James Kenelm Clarke
Cast: Udo Kier, Linda Hayden, Fiona Richmond
Year: 1976
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The Movie:
Also well-known under the titles Trauma and Expose, 1976's House On Straw Hill tells the sordid tale of Paul Martin (Udo Kier), an author who rents a remote country home in rural England in order to find the peace and quiet that he needs to finish his latest book. Paul's agent insists that he hire a secretary to stay with him, so that he won't be distracted by the day to day banalities that tend to break one's concentration, and so he brings on a pretty young woman named Linda (Linda Hayden) for that purpose.
Things seem fine at first, with Paul making time with the housekeeper, Suzanne (Fiona Richmond) and still managing to get some work done. Soon enough, however, Paul finds out that Linda has other plans. In fact, the real reason she's there isn't to work as his secretary but to kill him off for stealing her husband's work and passing it off as his own, an act that caused her husband to take his own life. Before she gets to Paul, however, she'll make short work of anyone else who gets in her path, be it Linda or two of the locals (Vic Armstrong and Karl Howman). Complicating things is the fact that Paul's psyche may be just as fractured…
Gleefully trashy but not lacking for interesting attempts at arthouse inspired visual flair, House On Straw Hill is a nasty little number that has been notoriously cut down from its full strength version over the years. Not only is the film pretty violent but it couples that violence with some fairly strong sexual encounters as well, the most surprising of which is Linda's rendezvous with her fingers after pushing back from Paul's advances. The film goes at a good pace and manages to build a fair bit of tension before it's all over and done with. If the ending is a little obvious, so be it, the filmmakers make up for that with plenty of exploitative content and so much the better.
The cast all do reasonably well here. It isn't easy to outdo Udo Kier even when he is dubbed as he is in this picture, but Linda Hayden manages to do just that. You can tell from the moment she walks on screen that something terrible is boiling beneath those remarkable good looks and once it's time to unleash all of that, she does a fine job. The fact that she's remarkably easy on the eyes certainly doesn't hurt things and her interesting mix of sultry sex kitten and innocent looking girl next door types gives the physical side of her work in the picture some mystery. Kier is fine, this isn't on par with his better work but it's a solid effort hampered by the aforementioned dubbing. When you know what Udo Kier sounds like and you see him in a movie where he doesn't get to use his natural and distinctive speaking voice you can't help but be a bit disappointed. He gives the role his all though, really going over the top in a few of the scenes where his character freaks out and snaps. Throwing the lovely Fiona Richmond, who had quite a career in sex films and nudie magazines, into the mix is never a bad thing either and she delivers the goods in spades. With that having been said, both pale in comparison to what Hayden is able to bring to the movie.
Video/Audio/Extras:
House On Straw Hill arrives on Blu-ray from Severin framed at 1.66.1 widescreen in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition presentation completely uncut. This complete version was, according to a text screen that precedes the feature, taken from three separate sources: the original (and heavily damaged) 35mm negative and two separate theatrical prints. The reason that this release was delayed a few times was because the elements were so problematic and in pretty dire shape (you can read about that in our interview with David Gregory here), but even if there is obvious print and water damage evident throughout the movie and some fairly obvious color timing issues, this is quite a nice improvement over the previous DVD release which came out in the UK and was not only cropped but edited as well. Detail is about as good as the source is likely going to allow for, but definitely above and beyond what we see on the included DVD version. There's a green hue to much of the movie but other colors are perfectly discernible even if things look a bit muddy sometimes. Black levels are okay but never great, though there are no obvious issues with noise reduction. This isn't perfect, the elements simply wouldn't allow for that, but it is a definite case of doing the best with what's available and as sometimes beaten as it might look, it's certainly watchable enough.
The only audio option for the feature is an English language DTS-HD Mono track that gets the job done. There is some hiss and pop throughout and things are a bit flat but the dialogue is sufficiently audible and the levels are generally balanced nicely. The score sounds fairly decent and sound effects as well. Again, Severin would seem to have done the best job with what they had, and it would be unrealistic to expect perfection.
Extras kick off with an audio commentary involving director James Kenelm Clarke and producer Brian Smedley-Aston moderated by Jonathan Sothcott. This is a pretty engaging track with a good bit of time spent discussing the contributions of leading man Udo Kier and of course, Linda Hayden, whose presence very obviously upped the sexual ante of the picture that originally started off as a considerably more conventional thriller. Evidently her casting and screen presence wound changing all of that, and it's interesting to hear how that went about happening. They also discuss some of the censorship issues, the locations, and generally just give us a good general overview of the movie and its unique history in British cinema.
The disc also includes a fifteen minute interview with Linda Hayden entitled An Angel for Satan in which the actress recounts her experiences working on the picture. She gives us a quick career overview and discusses some of the pictures she was involved with before House, Blood On Satan's Claws and Taste The Blood Of Dracula to name a few, and she speaks kindly about working with Udo Kier and Fiona Richmond. However, she's not too keen on House as a movie and notes that she didn't take on any sort of active role when it came time to make the publicity rounds for this picture.
Rounding out the extras on the Blu-ray disc itself is the film's theatrical trailer, some menus and chapter stops. As this is a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack, a DVD version including the same extras is also found in the case.
Additionally, the first three thousand units of this will include a bonus DVD that contains both parts of the Ban The Sadist Videos documentary originally created in 2005 by David Gregory and Blue Underground that documents the rise of the 'Video Nasties' craze that swept the UK during the home video boom of the eighties. This was released on DVD in the UK but is released in North America for the first time with this set. The documentary follows the exploits of the BBFC and Mary Whitehouse in their efforts to purge the country of films deemed questionable or inappropriate for British citizens and for those not familiar with the saga, it reaches some rather insanely feverish heights. The two parts of the documentary are made up of some interesting archival clips and ephemera as well as interviews with various video industry participants and shop owners, political types and filmmakers to present a remarkably well rounded look at what got British censors into such a ridiculous tizzy over horror films a few decades ago. It all seemed to have reached a boiling point when the death of a two year old boy named James Bulger was tied to horror movies
Given that House On Straw Hill has the dubious honor of being the only British film to be banned as a nasty, the inclusion of the documentary in this set is a pretty fitting addition to the release as whole. In addition to the two parts of the feature documentary, the bonus disc also includes an eleven minutes featurette entitled Censors Working Overtime: The BBFC In The 21st Century. This is a ten minute look at the Video Nasties craze by David Flint that updates things a bit and discusses the BBCF's role in the 2000's.
The Final Word:
House On Straw Hill remains a pretty engrossing, twisted thriller particularly when viewed in its full strength version as presented on this release. The performances are great and the seedy air of debauchery lends itself well to the storyline. Severin's Blu-ray release does the best it can with some seriously mangled elements and offers the best home video presentation we've seen to date. On top of that it throws in some pretty solid supplements, the highlight being the bonus disc including the feature length two part Ban The Sadist Videos. All in all, a very thorough and welcome release for anyone with an interest in the movie.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
And some caps from the documentary on the bonus DVD!
And some caps from the documentary on the bonus DVD!