Exposé (film)

Exposé (also known as House on Straw Hill) is a 1976 video nasty[1] starring Udo Kier, Linda Hayden and 1970s sex symbol Fiona Richmond. Originally released straight to theaters in March of 1976, it received a heavy amount of cuts due to its graphic violent and sexual content, and both the 1997 UK video and current DVD re-release retain these edits.[2][3]

Exposé
Directed byJames Kenelm Clarke
Produced byBrian Smedley-Aston
Written byJames Kenelm Clarke
StarringUdo Kier
Linda Hayden
Fiona Richmond
Music bySteve Gray
CinematographyDennis C. Lewiston
Edited byJim Connock
Distributed byTarget (UK)
Release date
  • March 1976 (1976-03) (UK)
Running time
82 minutes (cut version)
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Plot

Paul Martin (Kier) is a novelist who rents out a secluded cottage in the British countryside in order to complete his new book, a pretentious sex romp. Plagued by recurring paranoid nightmares, he has split with his girlfriend Suzanne (Richmond) and is having problems writing his book. Paul employs a secretary, Linda Hindstatt (Hayden), to type the manuscript for him. Paul meets Linda at the railway station, where Linda is intimidated by a couple of youths, prompting Paul to give them a battering. After settling into the house, Linda takes a walk in a field where she is raped by the youths but soon gets revenge when she shoots them both with a shotgun. Meanwhile, Paul keeps having nightmares and all his advances on Linda are rejected. Linda insinuates herself into the household, displacing the housekeeper, Mrs. Aston. When a suspicious Mrs. Aston returns to the house at night, she is murdered: her throat slashed with a knife. As he and Linda work on completing the novel, Paul asks Suzanne to come back only to have Linda seduce her. As Linda and Suzanne have sex, Paul then crashes his car into a river, the brakes having been tampered with. Suzanne is murdered in the shower and everything erupts into a pandemonium of violence.

Cast

Production

The house being used for the film was, at the time, being rented by the director, James Kenelm Clarke. The house is situated on Spring Elms Lane, Little Baddow, Essex and is a private residence. The rape scene and the final scene were filmed in the wheatfield adjoining the back garden. Other locations used around Little Baddow were Mowden Hall Lane and its junction with North Hill, the bridge on Church Road as it crosses the River Chelmer, and the ford in Hurrells Lane. The station scenes were filmed at Hatfield Peverel Railway Station

In a documentary on the DVD of The Blood on Satan's Claw Hayden says that this is the only movie she regrets making and was not the film she had made originally.

Edits
  • Udo Kier was dubbed.[4]
  • The current 18-rated UK DVD version has around 51 secs of cuts, with edits to the rape scene, some of Suzanne's death, and the shot of her dead in the shower.
  • In 2013, Severin Films released a Blu-ray and DVD double-disc set of Exposé under the title, House on Straw Hill. In the preamble on the disc, Severin state that this version was created using the original negative and two prints of the film to give it its uncut form. The quoted running time is 84 minutes.

Remake

The film was re-made in 2010 as Stalker (aka Exposé), directed by Martin Kemp, starring Anna Brecon as writer Paula Martin and Jane March as Linda, and with original star Linda Hayden as "Mrs Brown".

References
  1. Video Nasties - A review of all 74 films that made the DPP hitlist
  2. Exposé Review. Movie Reviews - Film - Time Out New York
  3. "Expose - 1975". Retrieved 28 February 2017.
  4. "beardyfreak.com". Archived from the original on 24 November 2005. Retrieved 28 February 2017.
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