Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Scott LeBrun "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.

gavin6942 After her prostitute mother and her john are beaten to death while they are asleep in bed, teen-aged Ellie Masters (Melody Patterson) is sent to an isolated orphanage run by Mrs. Deere (Gloria Grahame) and her handyman (Len Lesser).While Melody Patterson is known for being Wrangler Jane in "F Troop", she will now forever be branded in my mind as Ellie Masters. I found this film to be far better than the ratings people assign to it, and Patterson was an excellent choice as the film's star (why she no longer acts is a mystery to me).Perhaps most interesting, from a historical standpoint, is this film's impact on the slasher subgenre. I generally like to think of "Black Christmas" as the first true slasher film, but there were elements here that had "slasher" written all over them. The film in general is not a slasher film, but the opening scene with the "hammer cam"? Heck, it was very much like the beginning of "Halloween". Coincidence or inspiration?

BaronBl00d Well, this film deserves a lot of the criticism it has received over the years: a most perverse storyline, major acting talent like Gloria Grahame being relegated to grade Z horror, lots of blood and unsettling scenes for early 1970s, and cheap, cheap, cheap production values. I cannot argue with any of these things as they are all true. The spirit of this film is one of genuine misanthropy, devoid of any human compassion at any level. All the characters seem to have flaws which turn them away from our sympathies(with the possible exception of Melody Patterson in the lead role as Ellie. The story is about Ellie, having witnessed the brutal slaying of her prostitute mother and a trick(not much of a treat here)with a hammer no less, being sequestered in a children's home from Hell. The place is run by Gloria Grahame - once promising and later flourishing star of Hollywood now desperate for a job, any job. Grahame is actually very good as a chilling woman who cares nothing for her wards but rather about cutting costs as she has a most depraved secret herself. She sanctions all kinds of terrible things in this home and will do anything to protect what she has - even sleeping on a regular basis with a county social worker type. Her henchman is Len Lesser - I recognized the face - and soon realized this was Uncle Leo from Seinfeld and Garvin from Everybody Loves Raymond. He plays a sick, twisted man who does the real bad stuff at the home. What kinds of things do we get here: rape, incest, death by hammer, provocative behaviour and undress from an adolescent, children running and killed trying to escape, children that have been slain being kept in a freezer and then brought out and defrosted and left in the infirmary for the body count by the social worker, a cop who has a sick, almost pedophilic obsession with Ellie, a killer wearing an effectively chilling mask and so on. There is almost nothing redeemable about the characters or the story or the budget, and yet despite all this I found the film interesting in a so-bad-its-good way. No, it isn't one of those films that will make you laugh - almost not all. But it has something about it that makes you glued. Part of it is that the acting is decent from Patterson to Grahame and Lesser to Vic Tayback doing a good job as the cop. Even some of the "kids" at the home are somewhat developed(character depth-wise I mean). I cannot say that I know many films like this one and recommend it as one of the more truly unique horror experiences from the 1970s. Watch out for that ending - it shows it is coming and yet I never caught on.

The_Void Despite the fact that it's trash, I have to say that I really enjoyed Blood and Lace. I'm really not sure where the 'lace' part of the title comes from (perhaps a rip-off of Bava's masterpiece Blood and Black Lace?), but there's a bit of blood and plenty of other sickness as this film features a sadistic orphanage, hints of incest and a whole host of older male characters desperate to get it on with the central character - a teenage girl. The plot has a number of different angles springing from the numerous characters that have an interest in the proceedings, and the film starts with a brutal murder of a mother/prostitute and one of her clients, committed with a hammer. This leaves her daughter Ellie without anyone to look after her since nobody knows who her father is, so she is sent to an orphanage. The orphanage is run by a woman named 'Mrs Deere' and a handyman named Tom. There's also a social worker who stops by every so often, and a police officer with an interest in Ellie that goes a little past the call of duty...It would be hard to argue that this is a bona fide 'good' film, but as a piece of seventies exploitation; it's a damn good film! This sort of flick really should just entertain and that's what it does. I imagine that certain themes on display would have been a lot more shocking in 1971 than they are today (though I'm not really sure how shocking considering the other films on offer around the early seventies), but personally I'm pretty much desensitised to being shocked by this sort of film anyway. The acting is pretty much atrocious all round, but lead actress Melody Patterson stands out in spite of her obvious lack of talent for being really cute! Older and more experienced performers Len Lesser, Gloria Grahame and Milton Selzer manage to impress a little more, but clearly this isn't an actor's film. The opening hammer murder sequence is the goriest and most brutal part of the film; from there the shocks are delivered by the male actors lusting after the teenaged lead, though the film doesn't feature any sex or nudity. The plot is always entertaining enough, and the ending revs up the stupidity to an irresistible level. Overall, Blood and Lace is pure trash and I really mean that in the nicest possible way! This film comes very much recommended to all the right people.