Blood and Lace

Ellie (Melody Patterson) is sent to the Deere Youth Home after her mum's brutal murder via hammer. The place turns out to be a den of iniquity run by a greedy, homicidal woman (Gloria Grahame) and her equally crazed henchman. The teen residents of the Home are vanishing. Are they all just "running away"? We're shown the terrible truth early on, so there's no real surprise. BLOOD AND LACE is a rather languid mystery-thriller without a whole lot of mystery or thrills. It is interesting in spots, and does try to be frightening with mixed results. The underlying theme appears to be that all adults are bad and out to destroy our youth. That, and that hammers are eeevil. Watch for Vic Tayback as a creepy cop...

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?