Estranha Vingança

A bizarre mix of I spit on Your Grave, crossed with 80s splatter horror films, Terminator-esquire cyborg flicks and journalistic detective stories.

The horror element is made up of the gory deaths the rapists suffer. The deaths are some sick stuff - yet MGM showed it with a 16 rating! There is no way this was made in 1991. I guess this sat on the shelf for at least 5 years. This is pure early to mid 80s. All grey-flecked suits, rolled up sleeves, wide shoulder pads, permed mullets, grey marble, clashing pastels, and bright neon tube lighting. This was made in the 80s and sat on the shelf gathering dust, and no surprise.

There's the occasional laughable B movie dialogue which lifts the film, but the overall grimness of the film makes it hard to watch and stomach.

I went into Steel and Lace (original title "Lady Lazarus" more creative if less of a good sell for VHS) expecting to make a hackneyed "well, how about that Promising Young Cyborg! Huyuck" line, and quickly realized that with Bruce Davison as really the one pulling much of the Sordid and Ultra-Violent Revenge strings this could actually be on a double feature with Ben (1971), which was his breakout role also out for payback (I saw that pretty recently so it's still on my mind). This would likely make the bottom half of the bill, however, as, aside from Davison being in too little of the movie to be we'll defined past basic lines, when the movie isn't having our hard cheekboned blonde badass Wren slaughtering these late 80s-cum-early 90s wannabe Patrick Bateman West coast jerks all but tearing them new a-holes (at least one of the effects sequences comes close to that), we have too much time with (sadly) dull Detective David Naughton not stopping the determined young former Courtroom sketch artist Alison (Haiduk) getting too close to the 5 years gone comeuppance crimes.

That part of the movie isn't entirely bad persay, but it feels draggy and the filmmakers don't do much to make us interested in these two and the very vague sense that they may have a relationship. The real meat of the movie is this vendetta with Davison as the brother of this woman who leaped to her death only to resurrect her and robo-Frankenstein a way for her to not only go in and completely and (believably) all too easily seduce these chodes to their gruesome ends, even as the how of Davison's character managing to... *do* all of this is meant to be explained away by "hey, five years," albeit a soggy exposition dump not being here is kind of nice. Who needs an explanation when good time can be spent with a this Femme Fatale model 001 dispensing justice?;

I think a slightly balsier movie would've had more moral wrangling with the court sketch woman, and Haiduk decent enough in the part she could probably do it. I don't think the director and writers are that interested in depth so much as moving things along so we can get from one set piece to another. In that sense it's also inevitable to compare this to I Spit on Your Grave, though thank God this is more exciting than that. It doesn't do a whole lot to distinguish itself as far as most technical scope aside from the special effects (though director Farino comes from that background), and even in a restored blu ray it looks fairly cheap and drab, but... look it - sometimes seeing a head coming bloodily off a body with what's left of the spine acting as a flailing decrepit member (intentionally? Not? I dunno my Freudian reading of it) is enough for me to give a solid recommendation.

Stars Bruce Davison (X-men), David Naughton (An American Werewolf In London), and Claire Wren as the rape victim/suicide turned killer cyborg. The story is rather unsettling, especially the way it careens back and forth between the dark revenge scenes, over to some fascinating comic bits (such as the forensic scientist who starts to enjoy the creativity of the murders), to dealing with Davison's character, who seems more like a robot than the robot. Perhaps it is unsettling because juxtapositions like that are so often a hallmark of real life as it is lived. The viewer really is kept in suspense about how the next victim will be claimed, and I defy anyone to guess all the deaths correctly beforehand. The dialogue verges on self-parody at times, and elements of several other flicks from Blade Runner to Robocop are borrowed with little attempt at disguise. Yet it all hangs together somehow, perhaps it is the thread of bad romance. A quirky gem.

Every once and a while, unfortunately not very often, you encounter a film for which you had low or even zero expectations, but then it turns out to be surprisingly enjoyable! I used to always refer to "Scream for Help" as an example for this, but it looks as if I can now also refer to "Steel and Lace" as an example as well! Being a low-budgeted and early 90s Sci-Fi/cyborg rip-off starring a couple of washed up B- movie stars, I just started watching "Steel and Lace" with all my brain functions switched off, but it didn't even take 10 minutes before I sat there with a big and sleazy smile on my face! The very simple but ingenious premise can be described as a hybrid between cyborg flicks like "The Terminator" or "Robocop" and rape & revenge horrors like "I Spit on your Grave". The beautiful and talented Gaily Morton was the victim a gang-rape, but during the trial in court, the nasty culprit Daniel Emerson and his buddies are set free due a lack of evidence. The poor girl can't handle the acquittal and commits suicide by throwing herself from a rooftop. Five years later, Gaily's scientist brother Albert recovered her body and turned her into a hi-tech cyborg with as sole mission to eliminate her assailants one by one. The murders in "Steel and Lace" are downright fantastic! Disguised as femme fatale, she lures them to sleazy hotels or empty meeting rooms and subsequently disembowels, decapitates or viciously castrates them! Enter David Naughton ("An American Werewolf in London") and the ravishing Stacy Haiduk as respectively a police inspector and a freelance reporter; both investigating the murder series and both suspecting a connection with the infamous trial. Particularly the first half of "Steel and Lace" is a lot of fun, with even a handful of hilarious lines as well. Upon discovering the first corpse, who got killed by a drilling device coming out of the cyborg's stomach, Detective Dunn makes the intelligent remark: "It looks like someone dropped a bowling ball right through him". The police doctor's reaction is even better, as he lifts the sheet that is covering the body, looks as him and stoically says: "This man has a hole in him…" The make-up effects are very good, which shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, since director Ernest Farino previously worked in the visual effects department of such classics like "The Terminator", "The Abyss", "The Thing" and "Dreamscape". The second half is less entertaining, since it primarily focuses on Haiduk's private investigation and Gaily's human conscience that slowly develops itself again, but by then "Steel and Lace" already turned into a guilty pleasure for sure.

Steel and Lace is a cool, inventive take on the revenge thriller/gore. Farino has directed a modern gore/thriller. I think this is the Pulp Fiction of its time. New concepts and turns of fate abound in this puzzling film.

A cute blonde lawyer is raped in an alley by a Wall Street Geico type character. He goes to trial and gets off from lack of evidence. He and his 4 buddies own a corporation that has a logo of a hand that is squeezing the world in a claw like grasp. (neat logo) Not being able to cope with the devastating news, the lawyer jumps off a building. Mysteriously, the Wall street crowd is then killed one by one in Ten Little Indians, style.

The director, Francio, really integrates a pastiche of film genres into an action/thriller/gory film that is way above other gore films. A lot of works are derivative to a fault, but this one integrates a lot of genres into a well crafted/shot/edited/music film.

I kept thinking, Death Wish, Gort, Hal, Spit on your Grave, Terminator and other films that were reverently depicted in this surprising film.

The actors and good and production values top notch...considering that this was probably a low budget film, this was an excellent example of good direction and control of the production. I like the way the robot gradually gains awareness about her actions.

Look for it in bargain bin, rental stores, and on cable TV. It is a neat discovery.