Welcome to the Scream Factory Crypt! In this binge series I will be watching all my Scream Factory titles I own alphabetically! Scream Factory is my favorite imprint of Blu-Ray’s because they take movies that studios and the public might not adore but have fans and deserve to be given respect. This will take a long time as I have over 120(!) titles and counting, I know I will have more before I finish, so stay tuned!  Not only will I talk about them on the podcast but I will review them here as well so you can see how I feel about aspects of each release. Part 13 is the early slasher film, Blood and Lace!

A crazed maniac kills a young woman’s mother and her lover with a hammer! The young lady, Ellie is now an orphan and sent to live at an orphanage ran by Mrs. Deere and her handyman Tom, but something sinister is afoot!

Blood and Lace is all over the place. Besides the opening murder scene that is somewhat effective it is a really strange picture. The opening scene is a cool tracking shot that is focused on the hammer, but it is ruined by some really hokey effects. The next scene deals with a teenage boy running from the orphanage, only to be chased by the handyman Tom who throws a knife at the kid which in turn he gets his hand chopped off. There’s also a really creepy subplot that deals with a Detective assigned to Ellie’s moms murder who falls in love with the young woman, who is in her teens and he is like 50. Also there is a batshit crazy subplot that involves Mrs. Deere killing the kids but keeping them in a freezer. She does this to collect a fee from the state, but if the state finds out they are dead or runaways she loses that money. All this is happening plus Ellie trying to run away from the orphanage as well. I am going to spoil this movie because it is so gross and stupid that it needs to be said (((Spoilers!!!!))) Near the end of the movie Ellie is terrorized by a burnt up old man. She runs from him and is chased to somewhere outside the orphanage. When the “killer” catches up to her he removes his mask, it’s Detective Carruthers! He tells Ellie that he knows she murdered her mom and her lover (this is confirmed in a flashback scene). He then tells her that if she agrees to marry him he will forget the whole she murdered someone part. Barf. Oh it gets better, during the course of the movie Ellie remarks on how she never knew her father but her mother said that he was the first person she made love to, and that’s how she became pregnant. Flashback to the last scene of the movie where Ellie tells Carruthers that her mom told her that older men make the best husbands (barf again). Carruthers then says, “you know I was the first man your mom made love to.” (triple barf).

Blood and Lace is not well made. The performances go from awful to terrible. The direction is boring. The effects are horrific. Movies like this should be fun because they are bad, Blood and Lace is a chore.

The video is pretty solid. The movie was released in 1971 and there is some nice looking colors and the details are pretty sharp. Some of the scenes lack some depth but that might be due to the lack of money not a transfer issue.

The audio is serviceable. It’s a lossless Mono track and the dialogue comes through well. The music in the movie is garbage but that has nothing to do with the discs capabilities.

Not much in the way of extras, but the Audio Commentary by Film Historian Richard Harlan Smith is way better than having to listen to the actual film, so if you want to watch Blood and Lace, I recommend it with the commentary. He has a lot of interesting facts about the film.

Blood and Lace is awful. I am sure it has fans, I am not one of them. Scream Factory’s disc however is solid and the one meaty extra on the disc is great.

Film: D-

Video: B

Audio: B

Extras: B

Overall: C-