Blood and Lace

Yes the "original" idea that opens Halloween has to come from on of the opening shots of this film. It's a hammer being carried through the house instead of a knife but it's very very close.

That said Halloween is a much better movie, which goes almost without saying. But this does have a lurid feeling and a warped ending. It's that modest to low budget grunge of the 70's that oozes sleaze and danger.

Unfortunately the plot here borrows from obvious sources as it goes along which dampens the more original aspects. Tayback fans from his nice guy TV star role will be shocked, or may want to be by seeing him here.

Still warts and all this film has its memorable moments especially for fans of the era.

It's hard to imagine that a film as twisted and perverted as Blood and Lace managed to get a GP rating at the time (a 70's equivalent of a PG). It might not be the goriest movie of all time, but there's definitely some blood on display and the entire story itself isn't one for the kiddos.

A teenager is orphaned after someone murders her mother with a hammer (in a POV scene that looks a lot like the openings of both Black Christmas and Halloween) and sets the house on fire. She ends up being sent to a home for older orphans that's run by a shifty middle aged woman who's only in it for the money. There's also a weird cop and a creepy handyman who goes around with a weird mask and hammer and kills any kids who try to escape.

Blood and Lace is pure melodramatic garbage and it seems to be pretty aware of this and everyone looks like they're having a blast. Former big screen goddess Gloria Grahame chews the scenery as the wicked headmistress of the orphanage and Alice's Vic Talback gets a juicy role as a cop.

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.

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.