Joseph Brando
I love old horror movies. The sleazy, underground B-movies that have more people seeing them today in the anything-goes digital era than they did decades ago when they were released but had trouble finding their audiences. I also love Udo Kier. He is one of my favorite actors with a unique and beautiful voice to match his unique and beautiful face. Linda Hayden is a lovely Brit actress who starred in sexy roles in horror films like "Taste The Blood Of Dracula" and "Blood On Satan's Claw". However, this meritless hunk of trash is a blemish on all three of those categories. Pretty much one trashy sex scene after the next joined together by stupid dialogue and a few kills, but nothing that even comes close to entertaining. AND they used another actor to dub in Udo's voice! - Blasphemy! If you wanna see a porn rent a porn. If you wanna see a vintage sleazy horror film, there are many great examples out there, but this incoherent mess is certainly not one of them. Udo is a book writer who goes to a secluded cottage to write his next book. He has disturbing nightmarish visions, hires Linda Hayden to come be his secretary. Then people start getting killed. And having sex. And getting killed. And having sex.
MARIO GAUCI
This movie has the triple distinction of being one of the 72 (though some sources state there were really 74!) infamous "Video Nasties" crackdown that took place in England during the first half of the 1980s, one of the 39 among them that were successfully prosecuted and subsequently suffered from a long-term ban, and also the only British film to actually make the list! Now that I have watched it for myself, I cannot say the picture does in fact deserve all the attention that comes with such notoriety but, considering the quality of the sheer majority of those "Video Nasties", this is definitely a step-up! Incidentally, EXPOSE' has a couple of other more appropriate monikers: TRAUMA and THE HOUSE ON STRAW HILL (which is the title borne by the copy I acquired), and I am pretty sure the latter was intentionally evoking both STRAW DOGS (1971) and LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972), two even more infamous films of the era; to be fair, it does owe something to each of them but, to the movie's credit, it also has its own identity.The plot deals with a novelist (a dubbed Udo Kier – as it happens, the star of yet another "Video Nasty" i.e. FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN {1974}) who has acquired instant celebrity status with his first book and is having a hard time following it up (though how he pretends to even be considered for the Pulitzer Prize with a piece of erotic fiction filled with such descriptions of someone engaging in the sexual act "like a virtuoso on his Stradivarius", to say nothing of blatant errors in typography picked up in close-ups, is beyond me!). To this end, he retires to a county house in England and, in order to speed up the writing process and meet his publisher's deadline, he is sent a secretary (Linda Hayden). The girl, however, has an agenda of her own – tied up with the nightmare that Kier himself keeps having (his neurosis extends to donning rubber gloves while making love to his girlfriend, softcore superstar Fiona Richmond!) – and soon proves to be even more disturbed than he is! The STRAW DOGS connection is particularly evidenced by the scenes involving a couple of yokels – one of whom, amusingly, sports a T-shirt boasting the inscription "I'm a Vampyre") – who importune Hayden when she arrives at the train station and then get to rape her in the fields outside Kier's house. The incident, however, does not traumatize her in the way that it should (which is, perhaps, another clue to her unhinged state-of-mind) since, for one thing, she disposes herself of the duo pretty easily but, also, because she had been repeatedly masturbating to the photo of the man who appears as a murder victim in Kier's visions (she even absents herself from typing to go have a 'quick one', with her employer subsequently pointing out "You've been a long time", to which she giddily quips, "In coming?"). One wonders why Hayden does not just 'get it on' with Kier (even if she does, eventually, as well as Richmond when the latter turns up at the house!)...but, of course, it has something to do with her mission there – which is to see the novel through before the revenge (I predicted the outcome of this, by the way: Kier is, in fact, a fraud who has not only stolen the manuscript of the true author and passed it off as his own but he has even killed the man, who happens to be Hayden's hubby) can be actuated. An interesting scene in this regard has the leading lady so into her work by the end that she literally finishes the book for the hero.Therein, then, lies a typical problem with this type of fare: even if, deep down, we sympathize with Hayden's motives, her extreme methods still decree that she is made out to be a villainess and, consequently, has to pay for her actions – but it also means that Kier himself, whose selfish/callous behavior actually put the whole thing in motion, is ultimately let off the hook (despite being the recipient of several knife wounds which will surely make him think that much harder on his next career move!) thanks to the eleventh-hour and, frankly, WTF intervention of one of the rapists who has unaccountably survived a gunshot to the face!! Apart from those instances already mentioned, the violence – not all that gory given its reputation (incidentally, my copy ran for 80 minutes, which I take to be a PAL conversion of the original 84-minute duration) – is directed at an old and nagging housekeeper (when she refuses to leave) as well as Kier's girlfriend (after Hayden has tricked her employer so that the two can remain alone). The sex, on the other hand, is ample and rather strong for the time but still too-obviously simulated (especially Richmond performing fellatio on Kier). For the record, Hayden and Richmond would later reunite for the same director in LET'S GET LAID (1978) – with the film he made in between, HARDCORE (1977), being a fictionalized biopic of Richmond (who even portrays herself)!
Jonathon Dabell
Expose (aka The House on Straw Hill) is extremely graphic. The sex is graphic, with gloating scenes of love making, masturbation and a scene near the end which looks suspiciously like anal sex. The violence is graphic too, with a fair bit of spilled blood and sadistic detail during the running time.Udo Kier gives an OK performance as a novelist who murdered a colleague in order to steal his latest manuscript. He is now working on a new book, with young secretary Linda Hayden to help him, but he can't seem to shrug off uncontrollable hallucinations about the crime he has committed.The director indulges in some flashy film-making techniques, but for all this pomp and circumstance there is no hiding the fact that this is pure exploitation fodder. I believe that this may well be the most heavily censored and graphic British film ever made, so it worth seeing for that dubious distinction (especially if you can track down the uncut 117 minute version.... very rare though). However, it's not really a very good movie and once you've experienced it, it is unlikely that you will want to watch it again. Footnote: If you're a fan of British sex siren Fiona Richmond, you'll be pleased to know that she spends most of this movie stark naked.
Shinwa
Unimaginative slab of sexploitation horror has nubile (if slightly pudgy here) Linda Hayden as a disturbed woman who comes to work as secretary for pretentious writer Udo Kier. After a slow buildup, peppered with repeated scenes of Hayden masturbating, she gets to work on knocking off the supporting cast. Hayden's charisma goes a long way to making the film watchable, but it's all a very dry exercise, with little effort in either suspense or characterization making the whole thing seem rather pointless, and the final twist revelation making all of the antics that came before somewhat questionable in motivation. In a supporting role, Fiona Richmond occasionally wears clothes.
