Blood and Lace

A textbook example of the "so bad it's good" B horror movie that, unfortunately, shows up less and less in video stores and on cable. "Blood And Lace" concerns Ellie, the teenaged daughter of the town prostitute. When Ellie's mother is murdered with a hammer by a john, the teen is sent to an isolated group foster home presided over by psycho housemother Gloria Grahame and sadistic handyman Len Lesser. Escorted by sympathetic sheriff Vic Tayback, Ellie arrives at the home and soon realizes that all is not well. Not only does she believe that her mother's murderer is stalking her at the home, but she also discovers that Grahame metes out horribly cruel arbitary punishments--and worse--to the teens who get on her bad side(watch for the disturbing scene in which Grahame torments a hapless girl who is tied up in the attic for not folding her dinner napkin(!))It all ends in a shocking denouement in which virtually all the main characters' secrets are revealed--and not just old Gloria Grahame is revealed as a sicko! I first saw this flick on TV about 15 years ago on a local independant station out of eastern Tennessee on a late-night horror show. I missed the first few minutes with the titles and murder of Ellie's mom, so for a while I went around with the memory of this warped mind-melter in my skull and no title. I found it out a few years ago when I purchased a compilation tape of horror movie trailers from Something Weird video(why can't they re-release this sucker on tape? It's right up their alley!). There's so much to love about this film . . . it should be in the top ten of every lover of bad movies! A delectable blend of pyschodrama, bad acting, and gratuitous violence--a lost gem! Hard to believe that it got a GP rating, which at the time was the equivalent of PG. This rating was probably due to the lack of sex and language, but all the murder, dismemberment, and sadistic torture of the teen orphans should have merited and R. Still, it's a sick delight. Catch it if you get the chance. Another weird flick from that era and genre is "The Baby", which is readily available on video. This one concerns a social worker concerned about one of her cases, an adult man who wears diapers, lives in a playpen, and is treated like a baby--literally--by his boozy, harpie mother and kinky adult sisters! Things get creepy when the idealistic social worker plots to kidnap "Baby" and save him from his freaky family! And believe me, you won't see the ending coming! Watch both if you get the chance!

This is a weird and rather gruesome horror film from the early 1970's. Melody Patterson's mother, a prostitute, is murdered in bed with one of her customers. Melody is sent to live at an orphanage run by the great Gloria Grahame where something very strange is going on. She has to contend with the possibility that the murderer is coming after her and the fact that the people running the orphanage are covering up mistreatment of their charges as well as other, worse things.

The scare scenes in the film are effective, especially the opening scene of the hammer murder of the mother. The film is helped along by the presence of a number of familiar faces, including, in addition to Melody Patterson and Gloria Grahame, Vic Tayback as a policeman, Len Lesser as the orphanage's handyman (he's very handy), and Milton Selzer as the orphanage inspector. The film also has a sense of humor about itself and you will find a couple of (intended) chuckles.

The film is topped by a weird "twist" ending that you will never see coming. In all, this is a very entertaining 70's horror flick and shouldn't be missed if you get the chance to see it.

The opening scene presents a gruesome hammer-murder of a prostitute and her customer in an unusual killer's POV (point of view) camera shot. Right after, an attractive young woman – Ellie Masters (Melody Patterson) – awakes from a nightmare and screams. She is the daughter of the murdered woman. Very soon, as she is without parents, Ellie is sent to an orphanage run by twisted Mrs. Deere (Gloria Grahame) and creepy handyman Tom Kredge (Len Lesser). They have the knack for capturing fugitives and keeping them in deep freeze, after they are dispatched by Kredge.

Detective Calvin Carruthers (Vic Payback) supposedly wants to help Ellie. His motives are morally ambiguous, to say the least. Another strange dude is Mr. Mullins (Milton Selzer), a social worker who enjoys the favors from Mrs. Deere for looking the other way. A teen-aged girl is tied up in the attic and deprived of water for not folding her napkin. Meanwhile there is a strange dude with a chilling mask lurking about the place. What does he want? Does he want to kill Ellie, thinking that she saw him murder her mother, whom Ellie despised? Rapes and killings abound. So yes, it's a sick movie all-around, but quite interesting. Logic is left outside the door, but the ending is a real grabber.

In short, this is a trash-lovers delight, with nary a sympathetic character. It was filmed by American International Pictures. Gloria Grahame was an actress from the 1940s to the 1980s; some of her movies are "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952), and "Oklahoma" (1955). Melody Patterson had starred in the TV sitcom "F Troop" in 1965-1967. Len Lesser was featured in both movies and in TV, such as "Seinfeld." Vic Payback was in both the movie "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (1974), and in the TV version, "Alice." Milton Selzer was more known for his TV appearances than film.

I give this a solid 7. Didn't see the film until it was released on BLURAY.

The print I saw was excellent, with decent sound. I have read various reviews all over the place.

For a movie supposedly made for $200,000 USD 1971 ($1,238,814.07 today) it is a stellar showcase of both creativity and using well held traditional production techniques, mixed in with really off the wall but effective tricks, some taken from other movies, some movies taken from this. The sound effects aren't as cheesy in most cases as I assumed since taken from older libraries, the crickets loop at the start were probably the most heard effect ever, have heard that in TV shows, movies and cartoons. The opening title , credits is a classic gothic german font, kinda cool. I was unfamiliar with Wranger Jane, but knowing the story of her career, this appears to be a bad turn in her history, degraded her. She is a presence on screen, but no match for someone like Vic Tayback (Calvin). The lighting at times is very flattering to her, and sometimes terrible. Her character's (Ellie Masters) entire back story is basically tragedy. I was surprised again with some production details like quality , but basic camera work, showing they probably hired union guys who have done a million TV shows. This does not look rookie, just lower budget. The actors chosen are great and are what hold this interesting 'prototype' slasher film together, but I find it more psychological than slasher.

Melody Patterson(better known as "Wrangler Jane" on TV's "F Troop") plays a young girl whose prostitute-mother is brutally murdered. Patterson's problems go from bad to worse when she is sent to an orphanage where the superintendent(Gloria Grahame, who's excellent) has her handyman(Len Lesser) murder those of her charges who try to run away. Remarkably brutal and unrelenting for its time, BLOOD AND LACE has been called one of the sickest PG-rated movies ever made and that it is, but I loved it anyway! A must for the horror film fanatic but all others are warned to stay away.