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!

"Blood And Lace" is best described as a demented "Grimm Fairy Tale". After her prostitute mother is murdered, teen aged Ellie Masters (Melody Patterson) is sent to an isolated orphanage run by Mrs. Deere (Gloria Grahame) and her handyman (Len Lesser, now known as Uncle Lou on "Seinfeld"). Taking an avid interest in her welfare is detective Calvin Carruthers (Vic Tayback, Mel from the "Alice" TV series). Taking almost no interest at all, is social worker Harold Mullins (Milton Selzer) who is completely under Mrs. Deere's thumb, or, as Lesser puts it "under her skirt". Lots of unpleasant surprises are in store for Our Heroine, not the least of which is the fact that Mrs. Deere and her handyman are both brutal sadists, who run the orphanage like a concentration camp. The film shows it's obviously low budget only too well, but it really doesn't matter. The script is very clever, Grahame is excellent as usual, and Patterson (of TV's "F Troop" fame), is appealing. The supporting players are all good, including a young Dennis Christopher, as one of the "inmates". Definitely ahead of it's time, "Blood And Lace" holds up remarkably well.

Blood And Lace is a great old-fashioned horror flick, which manages some campy laughs as well as some real scares.

shot in lurid, eye-poping colors, not unlike the films of HG Lewis, and stuffed with some nasty gore scenes and unhealthy references to prostitution and pedophilia. belive it or not, all in a GP (todays equivilent of PG) rated movie.

look for early roles from "Alice" star Vic Tayback as a sleazy detective, and a hilariously over-the-top performance from Len Lesser as the creepy scumball handyman...all the funnier because Len Lesser went on to play Jerry's uncle Leo on "Seinfield!"

if you're in the mood for a good old style horror flick, you can't go wrong with this one.

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.

"The Baby" from 1973 kind of takes the cake for the most twisted movie to ever get a PG rating (that this viewer has seen, anyway). But "Blood and Lace" would have to rank as a strong contender for that title. Its final revelations elevate it (or lower it, depending on your sensibilities) to something truly special.

It can boast a stylish opening murder set piece. Done mostly from the killers' perspective (with some cuts here and there), it actually predates sequences from both "Black Christmas" and "Halloween". It's got a cast of familiar faces, with the lovely Melody Patterson of 'F Troop' starring, screen legend / Oscar winner Gloria Grahame as a nasty antagonist, Len Lesser (Uncle Leo from 'Seinfeld') as her handyman / henchman, Vic Tayback (Mel from 'Alice') as police detective Calvin Carruthers, and TV veteran Milton Selzer as a social worker.

Ellie Masters (Patterson) is a teen whose mother, the extremely busy town whore, is murdered along with one of her johns. So Ellie is shipped off by Mr. Mullins (Selzer) to an orphanage, a den of corruption where uncooperative kids meet cruel fates. And not only will Ellie yearn to escape, she'll fall in lust with hunky resident Walter (Ronald Taft, "Night of the Witches"), compete with Lolita-like character Bunch (Terri Messina, "Single Room Furnished"), and a mysterious goon in a hideous mask will prowl around the premises.

Some buffs may cringe seeing Ms. Grahame in this kind of exploitation fare, but she does a solid job. Lesser, Tayback, and Selzer are all good as well. Patterson and Messina, despite clearly being substantially older than their characters, are appealing. That's a young Dennis Christopher ("Breaking Away", "Django Unchained") as orphanage resident Pete, and none other than June Foray can be heard as the voice of Ellie in her first scene in the hospital.

Strikingly violent, definitely melodramatic, and offbeat enough to be amusing, "Blood and Lace" is a shocker that ought to satisfy curiosity seekers.

Seven out of 10.