Her Private Hell

Norman John Warren (born 25 June 1942 in London, England) is an English film director best known for such 1970s horror films as Satan’s Slave (1976), Prey (1977) and Terror (1978). Warren is also known for sex comedies such as Spaced Out (also known as Outer Spaced and Outer Touch, 1979).

Along with Peter Walker, Warren’s films are sometimes dubbed “New Wave” British horror, on the basis that they upped the ante in terms of explicitness, were set in modern-day 1970s Britain and centred around young protagonists of ages between 20 and 30, distinguishing them from the period piece horrors of Hammer Films that had appeared before.

Career

An avid film fan from childhood, Warren entered the film industry as a runner on The Millionairess (1960) and as an assistant director (The Dock Brief, 1962) before directing the short film Fragment in 1965. Calcutta-born Bachoo Sen (1934–2002), owner of the Astral Cinema in Brewer Street, London, who had an interest in film production, saw Fragment and subsequently hired Warren to direct two feature-length sex films, Her Private Hell (1967) and Loving Feeling (1968). Both were successes, but Warren saw little of the profits.

Not wanting to be typecast as a director of sex films, Warren turned down a third directing offer from Sen (which would have been 1969’s Love is a Splendid Illusion) and had to wait several years to raise the money required to make Satan’s Slave (1976), the first of a series of horror films that he would direct. Warren’s final two films, Bloody New Year and Gunpowder (both 1987), were hampered by low budgets imposed by producer Maxine Julius.

Although Warren has not directed a feature film since 1987, he continues to work in the industry directing music videos and educational short films such as Person to Person, a BBC film designed for students of English. His horror films have developed a cult following, culminating in the making of Evil Heritage, a 1999 documentary about his work, and the release of a DVD box set in 2004.

In 2007 Warren worked on the supplementary features for the Region 1 DVD releases of Corridors of Blood (1958), The Haunted Strangler (1958) and First Man into Space (1959). He is a regular guest at Manchester’s Festival of Fantastic Films. —Wikipedia