Lila

This is a film that takes all that was great about exploitation films in the 60s and mixes them into a heady brew sure to entertain any and all cinema deviants. Originally released in two versions (one for the sex crowd, one for the horror crowd), it's the lean and mean horror version that is the one to see. Unfortunately the version released onto DVD is the longer sexier version but some of the scenes from the horror version (an alternate psychedelic murder, splashing blood) are included as supplements. The sexier version of the film drags in many spots with extended dances in the nightclub scenes and a totally extraneous sex scene in the middle that brings the film to a dead halt. But still either version of this film is worth watching and cherishing by fans of 60s psychedelic cinema.

Fairly tame and unexciting, Mantis in Lace is about a stripper in a club who tries acid one night while out with some groovy cat and has a bad trip. She hallucinates weird lights and patterns on the guy's face. Then she stabs him repeatedly with a screwdriver. End of date. She proceeds to go find other guys and brings them back to her place and does the same to them.

I was expecting more from this one. It's very, very low-budget, even by films of this type. The main actress isn't anything to write home about and the lensing by stud cinematographer Lazlo Kovacs isn't that hot. It also drags in a big way. This feels almost like a short that was padded to feature length.

Film has none of the mind-bending visuals or stylistic flourishes of Rotsler's brilliant "Like It Is" which was also released in 1968.

Mantis in Lace is very much a product of the late 60s, with the ending of censorship and the freedom to experiment with edgier themes. Released in 1968, this film was probably one of the first color soft-core flicks to be released. The special effects are cheesy, the murder scenes are unconvincing, the dialog is hammy, and the plot is paper thin. But what do you expect? The story centers around a cute dancer, Lila, who has a drug problem. She has sex with guys who naively falls for her. Lila, while hallucinating, murder guys after wards. The murders are then investigated. The sex scenes are mainly non-pornographic with usually only the bare back and sides being shown. The 60s are very much the experimental age with some bizarre-looking hallucination scenes. I call it weird art. There is a cut scene that features an even more bizarre hallucination. And it tops it off with a gruesome gory murder that combines bare breasts, blood, and gore. It is something that was and probably is still too explicit to be shown to normal viewers.

The heart of the film are, of course, the topless dancing featured by three or four young women. They are very nice to watch, even though a couple of the girls are quite ugly. Mantis in Lace will very much remain a part of film history. Overall recommended, if this is your type of stuff.

"Mantis in Lace" (1968) is, in four fairly equal quarters, a soft-core skin flick, a psychedelic drug movie, a slasher horror film AND a police procedural. In it, we meet Lila (Susan Stewart), a young and gorgeous topless dancer who takes LSD one night with a guy she's picked up. After hallucinating pretty severely for a while, Lila kills the young dude with a screwdriver and chops him to bits with a meat cleaver. This scenario is repeated three or four times while a pair of (surprisingly UNdorky) L.A. cops tries to track the maniac down. Yup, that's pretty much all this film has to offer. One of Lila's victims, I might add, is Stuart Lancaster, who might be a familiar face to all the Russ Meyer fans out there; another, a macho rapist, most certainly deserves to be diced at Lila's hands. The picture feels very padded with numerous topless dance numbers (the opulently cantilevered legend Pat Barrington looks pretty impressive, actually, doing a frenzied belly dance; come to think of it, she would do a bit of "tripping out" herself that same year in the film "The Acid Eaters"), long makeout scenes, a lovemaking bout between the topless club's manager and a job applicant that adds nothing to the plot whatsoever, and loads of colorful hallucinations. It has been lensed by Laszlo Kovacs, who would depict an even more harrowing lysergic experience in the following year's "Easy Rider." (Actually, I found the aural component of Lila's trips much more freaky than the visuals.) Sadly, the viewer never learns anything concrete about Lila's background, or why the drug sets her off the way it does; indeed, the only thing we can discover about her comes from the film's admittedly hypnotic theme song. Concluding with an ironic albeit extremely telegraphed ending, "Mantis in Lace" is ultimately a real mixed bag; a psychedelic psycho curiosity that should have been better. Oh...this Something Weird DVD features over 100 minutes' worth of alternate film footage. Far out, man!

Well it's safe to say that Mantis in Lace doesn't have a lot in the way of a storyline. This is obvious from the outset as a sequence that should have took little over five minutes is dragged out to around half an hour, but the lack of plot line isn't important as William Rotsler's psycho thriller is really all about atmosphere. This film precedes a load of these films that were made in the seventies, and is certainly above average for its type. Most of the runtime is taken up by gratuitous nudity and phoney looking violence, as well as a fair helping of scenes involving drug use; and all of this is fine with me! The plot revolves around LSD and features a sweet young stripper who is picked up in a bar by a man. He gives her the drug and this begins a hallucinogenic nightmare as she promptly kills him and then proceeds to pick up other men from the club and take them back to her place, where they suffer a similar fate to her first 'boyfriend'. The twist is that she kills all of these guys with garden tools! There's also a rather lacklustre police investigation going on...

Despite the slow pace and thin plot, the film is entertaining for fans of this sort of stuff. Director William Rotsler builds up a fabulous trash atmosphere, which benefits the completely trashy plot line. The film stars Susan Stewart, who perhaps isn't the greatest actress of all time; but she plays her part very well and gives the film the added benefit of some eye candy. She looks good without her top on. A lot of the film takes place inside a strip club, which is an excellent setting for a film like this. The comic relief comes from the two inept police officers, who spend more time coming up with silly theories and cracking jokes than they do actually investigating the crime. But then again, this wouldn't be much of a trashy thriller if it featured decent coppers! There are practically no surprises at all in the plot and it's always obvious what is going to happen - at least it is until the end when Mantis in Lace finally shows some ingenuity (but don't expect too much). Overall, this is a nice little thriller and comes highly recommended to fans of this sort of stuff!