House Of Mortal Sin

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The story concerns a concerned young girl who goes to revelation at the local church; alas, the sexually-angry priest she acknowledges to becomes fascinated with her. The next day, Meldrum invites Jenny over to his presbytery, which he shares with his frail, bed-bound mother and his housekeeper, Miss Brabazon. Valerie's mum gets fed a poisoned communion wafer, and another main character gets strangled with rosary beads. In 1983, when Cushing acted in Walker's final film, The House of Long Shadows, Walker learned that Cushing actually liked the script, but had other film commitments. And I haven't even mentioned we get another memorable turn from Walker regular Sheila Keith as Sharp's foreboding, eyepatch-wearing housekeeper Miss Brabazon.

Was it just that her parents' house was in such darkness that she fell out of the window by accident?It could use a good trimming of about twenty minutes but that's far from a complaint considering how steeped in a foreboding shadow and dipped in sadistic atmosphere it is.

When Father Cutler confronts Father Meldrum about the tape, Meldrum plays another tape that makes Jenny look like she is lying.

When Jenny Welch (Susan Penhaligon) goes to confession and tells Father Meldrum that she has had an abortion, he decides that all those involved should be punished. In 1983, when Cushing acted in Walker's final film, House of the Long Shadows, Walker learned that Cushing actually liked the script, but had other film commitments. A sadistic, wretched, corrupt, homicidal individual who probably couldn’t have been portrayed any better than what Sharp accomplished.

The performance of Anthony Sharp in particular, as the immoral and internally tortured priest, was outstanding. Meldrum arrives, strangles Vanessa, and at Brabazon's urging, murders his mother on the pretext of a mercy killing. We slowly learn that the good Father has a sickly mother (Hilda Barry) that he loves very dearly but is being abused by one-eyed caretaker Miss Brabazon (played eerily by Walker regular Shelia Keith), whose reasons for abusing her will be revealed later on. So I’m scrolling through Arrow’s “leaving soon” section and a bunch of Pete Walker films are there and somehow I didn’t even realize they had been there to begin with?If you have any information regarding this production, the locations or, even better, some comparison shots please contact us. Also known as 'The Confessional', another of Pete Walkers's critiques of institutional hypocrisy, in which a troubled young girl goes to confession at the local church. When she tells Terry of Meldrum's actions, Terry tracks Meldrum down and threatens him, but Meldrum bludgeons Terry to death with an incense burner and buries him in a freshly dug grave in the churchyard.

This is another tale of moral hypocrisy, misogyny, and perversion at the hands of supposed peacekeepers, very much like House of Whipcord except that Whipcord veers into the “women in prison” genre whereas this one focuses on an insane and corrupt priest. House Of Mortal Sin marked the end of Pete Walker's trilogy of well-regarded "suburban horrors", made up of House Of Whipcord and Frightmare. Then our star "Jenny" (Susan Penhaligon) meets up with her old school buddy (Norman Eshley) who is now a priest. After finding out that Meldrum tapes his confessions and uses them for blackmail, Jenny runs away (again), and is overjoyed (? Anthony Sharp is wonderful as Father Meldrum, a mad-as-a-hatter old priest who becomes obsessed with lovely Susan Penhaligon after hearing her confession.The next morning, Jenny makes her way to Father Meldrum's presbytery, where he lives with with his frail Mother and Miss Brabazon the housekeeper. She goes to the presbytery and encounters Mrs Meldrum, who knows that her son is mad and begs Vanessa to help. One other intriguing detail caught my eye: the junior priest drove around in the rain in a car with a missing windscreen wiper; was this deliberate? Tetramesh identifies this as Lowther Parade in Barnes, Greater London, facing number 147 Church Road. The pair make a suicide pact so that they can be together for ever, but after Brabazon fatally stabs herself, Meldrum hesitates.