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Pete Walker (born 4 July 1939)[1] is an English film director, writer, and producer, specializing in horror and sexploitation films, frequently combining the two.[2][3][4]

Pete Walker
Born	(1939-07-04) 4 July 1939 (age 83) Brighton, Sussex, England
Occupation	Film director screenwriter producer
Parent	Syd Walker (father)

Biography

Walker was born on 4 July 1939 in Brighton, England, the son of a stand-up comic Syd Walker and a showgirl mother.[5][6] He began his performing career as a stand-up comic while a teenager, but quit at age 19.[5]

Walker made films such as Die Screaming, Marianne, The Flesh and Blood Show, House of Whipcord, Frightmare, House of Mortal Sin, Schizo, The Comeback, and House of the Long Shadows.

His films often featured sadistic authority figures, such as priests or judges, punishing anyone — usually young women — who doesn't conform to their strict personal moral codes, but he has denied there being any political subtext to his films. Because of the speed with which he had to make his films, Walker often used the same reliable actors, including Andrew Sachs and Sheila Keith, the latter playing memorable villainesses in four of Walker's pictures.

Walker decided to retire from filmmaking after his last film in order to focus on buying and restoring cinemas.[7]

Malcolm McLaren hired Walker to direct a documentary on The Sex Pistols entitled A Star Is Dead. Walker was an unlikely choice of director for this project and the deal fell through when the band split up.

Walker's work was reviled and condemned by some contemporary critics, while others were surprised to find relatively sophisticated subtexts in what were made and marketed as commercial exploitation films. Although Walker's movies have never undergone a critical reappraisal in the same way as Hammer films or his American contemporaries Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven, the release in 2005 of a DVD boxed set of five of his films was greeted with some good notices in the British national press.

On his own work, Walker has said when asked if his films had hidden depths, "Of course they didn't. But recently I had to record commentary for the DVD releases, so I saw the films for the first time since making them, and you know what? They're not as bad as I thought. But searching for hidden meaning ... they were just films. All I wanted to do was create a bit of mischief."[7]

Filmography

Year	Title	Notes	Ref.
1967	For Men Only		[8]
1968	The Big Switch		[9]
1969	School for Sex
1969	Man of Violence		[10]
1970	Cool It Carol!		[11]
1971	Die Screaming, Marianne		[12]
1972	Four Dimensions of Greta		[13]
1972	The Flesh and Blood Show		[14]
1973	Tiffany Jones		[15]
1974	House of Whipcord		[16]
1972	Frightmare		[17]
1975	House of Mortal Sin		[18]
1976	Schizo		[19]
1978	The Comeback		[20]
1979	Home Before Midnight		[21]
1983	House of the Long Shadows		[22]

See also

• Derek Ford
• Stanley Long
• David McGillivray
• Norman J. Warren

References

Sources

• Chibnall, Steve (1998). Making Mischief: The Cult Films of Pete Walker. London, England: FAB Press. ISBN 978-0-952-92601-6.
• Rigby, Jonathan (2000). English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema (Third ed.). London, England: Reynolds & Hearn. ISBN 978-1-903-11179-6.

Further reading

Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema by Simon Sheridan (fourth edition) (Titan Publishing, London) (2011)

External links

• Pete Walker at the BFI's Screenonline
• Pete Walker at IMDb
• Pete Walker at AllMovie
• Mondo-digital.com

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