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House of Mortal Sin: Standard Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - 88 Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (6th November 2024). |
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The Film
 When young craft shop owner Jenny Welch (Patrick's Susan Penhaligon) literally runs into schoolmate-turned-Catholic priest Bernard Cutler (See No Evil's Norman Eshley), she is initially hesitant about his offer to provide a listening sympathetic ear to her troubles with unfaithful, emotionally-abusive boyfriend Terry (The Flesh and Blood Show's Stuart Bevan) who has just walked out on her again. On impulse, Jenny goes to the church hoping to give confession to Bernard but she ends up unburdening herself to Father Xavier Meldrum (Die Screaming, Marianne's Anthony Sharp) and revealing more than she had intended, including the fact that she had had an abortion. Jenny hastily flees the church but Meldrum has become fixated and starts stalking her. When Jenny look for a more sympathetic ear in potential suitor Bob (Frightmare's John Yule), he becomes the victim of an apparent freak accident involving an exploding coffee pot. When Jenny visits Father Meldrum at the vicarage to retrieve her lost keys, he attempts to get her to open up and horrifies her when he reveals he has tape-recorded her confession and threatens to send it to her parents unless she accepts his counsel. After Terry comes back and then vanishes after promising to confront Meldrum and retrieve the tape, Jenny believes Meldrum is responsible but her sister Vanessa (And Now the Screaming Starts' Stephanie Beachm) and Bernard – who has moved into their spare room – but they both believe Meldrum's explanation that she is overwrought after Bob's accident and Terry's abandonment and has misinterpreted his offers of spiritual counsel. As Meldrum escalates his campaign to possess Jenny, she may have found an ally in Mrs. Davey (Erik the Viking's Julia McCarthy) who believes Meldrum caused the suicide of her teenage daughter Valerie (Frightmare's Kim Butcher). Meldrum, however, has his own malevolent guardian angel in housekeeper Miss Brabazon (Frightmare's Sheila Keith) who keeps her ear to his door and her one good eye looking over his shoulder when not tormenting Meldrum's bedridden mother (Fragment of Fear's Hilda Barry). A Catholic horror film coming after The Exorcist and the European boom of ripoff possession movies, House of Mortal Sin is calculated to outrage with its pre-The Thorn Birds romance between Bernard and Vanessa, psychotic priest, and murders with ecclesiastical objects like an incense burner, rosary beads, and poisoned communion wafers. It has much more in common with Italian gialli films involving Catholic priests real or fake and Walker's American lapsed Catholic equivalent Alfred Sole's considerably more biting Alice, Sweet Alice which actually is a whodunit but does also feature a suspicious, all-seeing presbytery housekeeper who also looks after a mute invalid. Walker and McGillivray, however, make no secret of the killer's identity – if Sharp's Meldrum is only represented by a cloaked figure wearing a gold crucifix during his attack on Bob, it seems more like it was due to Sharp not being available for the scene than raising the possibility that the culprit might actually be Bernard before he turns up with Vanessa – and instead depict the way he can drop his facade in front of Jenny with the full knowledge that his authority will never be questioned by anyone who happens upon them even when they are in a physical struggle. Walker has never denied his Hitchcock influences, but there is only so much he can try to ape the likes of Shadow of a Doubt in this respect before stretching credulity to absurd degrees. While the viewer never doubts that Jenny will not be fazed by Meldrum's attempts to shame and blackmail her into submission with her confession about her abortion, the degree to which she is worn down by other people believing her to be making things up does not quite convince, and the film would be considerably tighter than the drawn-out one-hundred-and-five minutes if any of the characters behaved rationally. The script requires the effects of sedation to slow down Jenny during the middle of the film while Vanessa and Bernard seem more oblivious and self-involved than believably concerned about her. In between this laggy passage and an ending intended to be dark and cynical but ends up being utterly absurd and anti-climactic, the film momentarily achieves some emotional resonance when the viewer comes to realize that Meldrum and Brabazon share (albeit more pathologically) a fear of being alone that makes Bernard's decision to leave the church for Vanessa seem like the healthier choice, especially with its full endorsement by the bishop (Day of the Triffids' Mervyn Johns) who observes "If you stayed on, you'd be a hypocrite - and we've enough of those as it is." If not for the follow-up Schizo, House of Mortal Sin would be the least-satisfying Walker/McGillivray collaboration, but Peter Jessop's photography and lighting make the outside chill palpable and give the church interiors a hellish glow while Stanley Myers' score is at his most unnerving in it underlining use of a choir that does not seem like it took any inspiration at all from Jerry Goldsmith's Academy Award-winning score for The Omen. Frightmare's Andrew Sachs makes a brief appearance as another burdened visitor to the confessional. Future Razorback grizzled old timer Bill Kerr appears briefly as Valerie's father while House of Whipcord's Ivar Salter plays a gravedigger. 
Video
House of Mortal Sin was distributed in the U.K. and several European territories by Columbia Pictures. Although it retained its original title in the U.K. it was retitled "The Confessional" in the U.S. for small distributor Atlas Films while in some territories Columbia called it "The Confessional Murders". RCA/Columbia distributed the film on tape in the U.K. but the rights reverted to Euro London when it was released on DVD as part of the Anchor Bay Walker set and then in the U.S. from Shriek Show. Kino Lorber released it on Blu-ray separately in 2014 and then in the second Walker set in 2015 which is also when Odeon released their U.K. edition. 88 Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray is the last new 2K scan in the set, and it is once again the case that the less yellow timing boasts healthier skin tones and richer primary colors in the wardrobe, bloodshed, and the infernal lighting of the church interiors while the newer scan also boasts superior detail and shadow detail. The upgrade is such, however, that some flubs in focus are more evident in the rushed shooting, with the drama of a striking composition in which the balance of power shifts from Sharp to Keith is undercut by blocking or insufficient depth-of-field as Keith is in crisp focus while Sharp and his nonverbal anguish is not (this was not apparent in the older transfers). 
Audio
The original English mono mix is presented in 24-bit LPCM 2.0 mono. We do not know if they have also had any additional clean-up over the older master – presumably the tracks were repurposed even in the case of the set's 2K negative scanned-titles – but the track rather is rather clean but unexceptional. Dialogue is always clear enough for lines to be intelligible but uneven levels are sometimes evident as well as occasional overdubbing while effects are supportive but only occasionally striking like the flaming incense burner. Optional English HoH subtitles are included.
Extras
Like Frightmare, House of Mortal Sin is the recipient of three audio commentaries including two new ones. First up is a new audio commentary by screenwriter David McGillivray, moderated by film critics Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw who reveals that the film marked his first fall out with Walker. McGillivray was having a hard time coming up with another one-word concept idea when Walker gave him a pulp novel about a killer vicar to rewrite to the extent that they would not have to pay the original writer. McGillivray felt that idea of a killer vicar was very Ealing comedy, but the change to a killer Catholic priest had the potential to create some publicity-friendly outrage which they did not get, and that Walker rejected his first draft as a "Play for Today with murders." McGillivray notes that Walker, Sharp, and Barry were all lapsed Catholics. While Newman argued that House of Whipcord could be considered a feminist film, McGillivray describes the females here who exercise agency as more "put upon." McGillivray also admits to knowing nothing about Catholicism, trips over some terminology, and recalls his research using a nun as a consultant and fully disclosing the nature of the project to her. They also discuss the work of Jessop and the uniformity of look of Walker's films while also conceding that most of them are ten-to-fifteen minutes too long. The film also has the second audio commentary by film critic Samm Deighan who discusses the Catholic horror films of the seventies and how the film differed in focusing on abuses of power and religion as another means of the "old guard" to resist change and punish those with a different kind of morality. Deighan also discusses the domestic drama aspect – noting the crossover of British talent in television plays and sexploitation films – which once again includes a variation of young people (particularly women) learning on their own how to be adults for better or worse. Deighan also discusses the work of McGillivray for Walker in contrast to his more overly supernatural and pulpy work for Norman J. Warren.  Ported from the earlier editions is an audio commentary by director Pete Walker, moderated by film historian Jonathan Rigby in which Walker discusses his Catholic background, his schooling in which he makes no bones about the unwholesome tastes of the priests and teachers. He also affords a bit more time here than in the other tracks to discussing his working methods with McGillivray versus Murray Smith – possibly because this was a difficult script – but is generally more complimentary of the writer despite their falling out. He claims that he wanted Peter Cushing (Curse of Frankenstein) – and that years later on House of the Long Shadows the actor recalled liking the script and wanting to do it but he had other commitments – as well as Harry Andrews (Man of La Mancha), and that Sharp despite also being a lapsed Catholic was professional and only wavered during the scene in which he has to simultaneously murder and administer last rites to a character late in the film. He also reveals that he and McGillivray had a fun time coming up with the murders, and that he viewed his popularity at the time with the British Film Institute critics with skepticism as the "flavor of the month." "Symphony of Horror" (7:23) is a brief interview with Walker about the composers of his films including Harry South, Ornadel, and Myers (he mentions Richard Harvey by name but the piece affords no discussion of House of the Long Shadows), and how he got to work with them affordably simply by having already known and worked with them earlier in his career. "Actor Confessionals" (14:32) features Eshley and Bevan reflecting on the experience, with the former recalling the looks he got when he walked into an Italian restaurant for lunch in costume with Beacham and Penhaligon on his arms while the latter recalls the ordeals of shooting his death scene and being both buried and dug up in the churchyard grave in the rain.
Packaging
The disc is housed with a reversible cover featuring original artwork.
Overall
A Catholic horror film coming after The Exorcist and the European boom of ripoff possession movies, House of Mortal Sin is calculated to outrage but its most chilling nastiness is more understated.
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