Blood and Lace (1971)

"Blood and Lace" (not to be confused with Bava's unrelated "Blood and Black Lace," though most likely a ripoff of that title) follows teenaged orphan Ellie Masters, whose prostitute mother has been clobbered to death with a hammer alongside a john in bed. When she arrives at Mrs. Deere's bizarre foster home, however, things go from bad to worse.An indisputable oddball of the early seventies, "Blood and Lace" has the unique character of occupying the space of both a whacked out splatter film, as well as a demented familial drama with Freud written all over it. The film opens with a double hammer murder straight out of any B-slasher flick, but while you'd anticipate the unfolding of a slasher film from thereon, the film does something of the opposite.Instead of opting for a straightforward slasher framework (which arguably didn't even exist at the time of this film's production), the narrative runs straight into an even more morbid situation at a foster home run by a strict sadist and her hired help. What is perhaps most striking about the film is the disparity between what the opening sets out to do, and what the film actually ends up doing; there is a strange lack of synchronicity between the two, but the hybrid nature is perhaps what makes the film memorable. The bulk of the picture unravels the twisted goings-on at Mrs. Deere's orphanage, and draws sparse links between them and Ellie's ordeal, which are never entirely fleshed out, yet the film never really demands enough of the audience for it to matter.The cinematography in the film is surprisingly lush for being such a low budget picture, and there are some great scenes focused in and around the large, eerie foster home. Melody Patterson is likable as the tortured heroine, while Hollywood classic Gloria Grahame plays the sinister Mrs. Deere remarkably well. Vic Tayback is also fantastic as the investigator with a pressing interest in Ellie's case. The film's conclusion is implicatively disgusting, and there is an absolute resistance against any happy resolutions, but this falls in tone with the rest of the film in all its cynical glory.Overall, "Blood and Lace" is a fine piece of early seventies sleaze. It's well-shot, well-acted, and in some ways sophisticated in spite of all its morally disreputable engagements. You may be surprised to find the film landed a PG rating in 1971, which is hard to believe given the sheer amount of wickedness inflicted on the underaged. Not a perfect film, but a fine example of lurid exploitative horror from days past. 7/10.

***SPOILERS*** With her hooker mom Edna, Louise Sherrial, and customer or John, John Durkins, bludgeoned to death with a hammer by an unseen assailant Ellie Masters, Melody Patterson, completely flipped out and ended up in the care of Mrs. Deere, Gloria Grahame, who runs an orphanage for mentally challenged & abused teenagers. In trying to get her head back together Ellie soon escapes from the orphanage only to be tracked and brought back by the understanding and kindly Det. Calvin Carruthers, Vic Taybeck. It's Det. Carruthers who takes a strong liking towards her and the problems, being an orphan who's father deserted her at childbirth, and tries to help her beyond the call of duty as a policeman or even social worker.It's back at the orphanage that Ellie runs into fellow inmate, the place is run by Mrs. Deere like a prison, Bunch, Terri Messina, who got the hots for one the boys or inmates there Walter, Ronald Taft, and feels that Ellie is trying to take the big hunk away from her. Walter for his part is secretly having an affair with Mrs. Deere who uses him to do all the heavy work, while sweaty and shirtless, at the orphanage that she provides for him. It's soon that Ellie discovers that the place is being used as a cash cow for Mrs. Deere in getting community money, at $150.00 apiece, for every orphan that's there. It's also used by her and her creepy handyman Tom, Len Lesser, in experimenting Nazi & KGB style with the orphans there in some kind of life after death on ice experiments.****MAJOR SPOILERS**** It's when too many of the orphans at the place end up missing in them being kept on ice in the orphanage meat freezer that corrupt social worker Mr. Mullins, Milton Salzer, in order to save his hide, in not noticing what was happening there in the first place, plans to have the place inspected to find out what exactly in going on there. This is a fatal mistake on Mr. Mullins part who ends up dead, with a butcher knife in his back, by handyman Tom who in return gets his from Mrs. Deere whom he was blackmailing. Now back to the star of the flick Ellie she's now targeted by Mrs. Deere in knowing too much in what's going on and has to be terminated before she can get the truth out. That's until this masked psycho shows up out of nowhere to protect her from any violence by Mrs. Deere and handyman Tom. The ending of the movie has Ellie's greatest fears realized in how her mother was killed and by whom. And even far worse the reason that the kindly and understanding Det. Carruthers was so interested in her and why he acted as her guardian angel throughout the entire movie. And even worse the blackmail scheme he dreamed up in order to keep her all too himself in not bringing up her past that she tried so hard to forget and keep secret!

This odd and twisted 70's exploitation gem is incredibly hard to find these days, but definitely worth tracking down in case you're a fan of low-budget horror stuff that pioneered in shocking themes and abrupt plot twists. "Blood and Lace" was extremely ahead of its time back in 1971, with its story lines about child-abuse inside the walls of an orphanage, POV murder-sequences and incestuous relationships. The film is also quite explicit, as it displays – albeit with cheap make-up effects – the brutal murder of a sleeping couple with the sharp end of a hammer! And this right at the beginning of the film, so how's that for an intro? The woman who gets murdered is the prostitute-mother of the young and beautiful Ellie Masters. Since she never knew her real father, Ellie is sent to an orphanage ran by the corrupt Mrs. Deere and her sadistic handyman Tom. They have the nasty habit of torturing disobedient residents and even killing the ones that try to run away before storing their bodies in the basement freezer. If that isn't enough yet, there's a horribly deformed killing lurking around the orphanage with a meat cleaver. A police inspector whose interest in her is more than just professional closely follows Ellie's every move and proposes a strange offer in exchange for her rescue… "Blood & Lace" benefices from an incredibly creepy atmosphere and the overall nihilistic tone often makes the film very disturbing. This is a genuine American drive-in exploitation flick, so you can expect the most offensive and politically incorrect situations imaginable! The acting performances also contribute a great deal to the film's power. Particularly Gloria Grahame (as Mrs. Deere) and Len Lesser (Tom) portray nightmarish characters you certainly don't want to interfere with. Naturally, the budget was far too low for one-time director Philip Gilbert to play with imaginative camera angles or visual tricks, but that's okay, since "Blood and Lace" purely relies on shocks and cruelty. You won't believe your eyes and ears on more than just one occasion! Highly recommended super B-trash of the seventies!

If you enjoy seeing once respected actresses past their "prime" in sleazy roles, then seek out this sickie with Gloria Grahame (co-star of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, an Oscar winner for THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL and highly impressive in several notable film noirs) as the abusive Mrs. Deere. To save money at the orphanage she runs, Gloria and the sadistic handyman (Len Lesser) kill their charges and store the bodies downstairs in a padlocked walk-in freezer. Melody Patterson (Ranger Jane from the "F-Troop" TV show) looks way too old for the role of 17-year-old Ellie Masters, who's sent there after her parents are killed by being whacked upside the head a few times with a hammer. The masked sick-o responsible for that crime and a sex-offender detective (Vic Tayback) show up to complicate matters.Yeah, the plot is overloaded to the max with all kinds of sick stuff and this is strictly a gutter trash exploitation movie, but Grahame (an underrated character actress if there ever was one) is good, it's fairly colorful and well photographed and there are a few surprises to the story. Not as surprising though as how this movie, with lots of brutality directed toward children (one even has his hand chopped off with an axe!), implied rape and incest and overall bad taste, earned a PG rating.