Blood and Lace
Tags: cult, murder

Plot synopsis:
The film opens as an unseen assailant enters a dark house, removes a hammer from a kitchen drawer, and walks though the house to the bedroom of a sleeping man and woman. The killer uses the claw of the hammer to beat the woman to death, and the man is bludgeoned as well, his face mutilated. Then the murderer sets the room on fire. The man in the bed tries to crawl to safety, flames burning his face.Ellie Masters (Melody Patterson) wakes up screaming in bed, the opening incident being the subject of her nightmare. The murdered woman was her mother, Edna, who was a small town prostitute. The man in bed with her was her latest john, and his body has apparently not been recovered. A social worker named Mullins (Milton Selzer) has Ellie temporarily housed in a hospital, but Ellie wants to leave and go in search of her estranged father, whom she has never met. Mullins refuses, since Ellie is still a minor and technically a ward of the state, and Mullins says if she leaves, he will have to report it to the sheriff. Ellie does pack a suitcase and makes a run for it, but a mysterious man follows her in a car. He reveals himself to be Calvin Carruthers (Vic Tayback), a former theater performer and now a detective working for the county Sheriff's department. He tells Ellie he knows who she is, and that he will look out for her, and he takes her back to the hospital. Later, Calvin meets Mullins for a drink in a bar and asks about his intentions regarding Ellie. Mullins says he's placing Ellie in the Deere Youth Home, an isolated orphanage run by a recently widowed woman named Mrs. Deere (Gloria Grahame). Mullins accuses Calvin of having a prurient interest in Ellie, and Calvin admits that he'd like to make Ellie his wife because he considers her good "breeding stock". Mullins tells Calvin that Ellie could never be interested in him because he's too old for her, but Calvin cuts him off by revealing that he knows Mullins has an unorthodox "business arrangement" with Mrs. Deere where he sends certain orphans to her home. Mullins leaves in a huff.At the Deere home, a young man named Ernest attempts to escape but is interrupted by Tom Krege (Len Lesser), a sleazy looking handyman who slaps him around. When Ernest hits him back and makes a run for it, Krege grabs a huge cleaver and pursues him, eventually cutting off the boy's hand. Ernest manages to hide in a bush, and Krege assumes he escaped. Krege collects Ernest's suitcase and repacks it, placing the severed hand inside too. Back at the home, Mrs. Deere accosts Krege for allowing the boy to escape, accusing him of being drunk. She orders him to "get the infirmary ready" because Mullins is bringing Ellie that day. The 'infirmary' is the way Mrs. Deere explains the absence of three children who have run away from the orphanage; they were each hunted down and murdered by either Mrs. Deere or Krege, and their bodies are kept in a large walk-in freezer in the basement. The infirmary is a place to keep their bodies so Mrs. Deere can claim they are "sick" and have Mullins peek in on them and hopefully believe they are alive. When Krege is transporting one body, he tells Mrs. Deere that her business arrangement with him is inadequate, especially when she tells him she gets $150 a month for each child in welfare payments.Later that day, Mullins arrives with Ellie, and right away Mrs. Deere stealthily reveals that her late husband, who died only a year before, was a customer of Ellie's mother. When Mullins tries to perform a head count of the children at the orphanage, Mrs. Deere distracts him with sexual favors. Meanwhile, Ellie attempts to get to know the other children in the home. First she meets Bunch (Terri Messina), who says she is 16. Ellie sees a hunky older boy working across the yard, and Bunch tells Ellie his name is Walter (Ronald Taft), also claiming he is her boyfriend. Ellie flirts with him immediately and reveals Bunch's lie when she asks Walter directly if he and Bunch are a couple, and Walter denies it, obviously attracted to Ellie.Ellie soon discovers that Mrs. Deere runs the home like a concentration camp, rationing each child's meals and forcing them to perform hours of labor in order to "pay their way". She bluntly tells Ellie that her time there will be strictly managed and that the children are constantly working, except for Sundays. Mrs. Deere reveals that her husband strayed after she "wasn't beautiful" anymore, and she hates people who are young and beautiful, and her cruel attitude toward the children seems to be spurred by this. At dinner, Ellie overhears the other children talking about the boy who ran away, as well as several others. When Ellie tells them she saw three children in the "infirmary", all the kids deny that this is possible, saying they're all accounted for--except for the runaways, whom they were told never returned. A boy named Pete (Dennis Christopher) tries to steal a dinner roll by stuffing it in his shirt, but Mrs. Deere comes in and catches him, hitting him and telling him he won't eat the next day because of this. Later, Ellie discovers a girl imprisoned in the attic named Jennifer (Maggie Corey), one of the runaways who was recovered. Jennifer is weak and delirious, moaning that she is thirsty and wants water. Ellie goes to get her a glass, but is caught by Krege, who makes a vague but ominous threat about her getting involved.Carruthers visits Ellie at the home and frightens Mrs. Deere by telling her he would like to search the entire house to look for the runaway Ernest, but he allows Mrs. Deere and Krege to talk him out of the idea. Ellie has a private conversation with him where she tells him about the other kids who have run away, but Carruthers tells her she has to stay because her mother's murderer may still be after her, and being hidden away in an orphanage is a great place to hide. Mrs. Deere goes into the attic with a glass of water and torments Jennifer, drinking the water right in front of her and abandoning her in the dark.Ellie and Bunch get into a conflict over Walter, who repeatedly dismisses Bunch as "too young" while spending time courting Ellie. Ellie tells Walter about her suspicions regarding Mrs. Deere and her sociopathic behavior, pointing out several truths to him, but he stubbornly refuses to believe anything is the matter. Krege lures Ellie into the basement by telling her that he knows a way she can escape, but when she agrees to meet him there, he tries to rape her instead. Meanwhile, Walter sees them and goes straight to Mrs. Deere and tells her. Mrs. Deere interrupts and "saves" Ellie, promising her she'll be punished, but she also confronts Krege and tries to fire him. Krege, however, blackmails her into splitting her ill-gotten welfare gains 50/50, which Mrs. Deere is forced to do when Krege promises to go to the police otherwise. Mrs. Deere "confides" in her dead husband, whose body she is keeping in the walk-in freezer, and she acts as if everything she does at the orphanage is under his direction. When she sends Ellie to clean up the shed, she tells Ellie that she thinks one day medical science will advance to the point where people who have died will be "restored", although Ellie doesn't realize yet that she's keeping dead bodies in the freezer. When Ellie is alone, Walter comes in and admits that he was the one who ratted Ellie out to Mrs. Deere, and for some reason Ellie confides in Walter that she is planning on running away. She even finds Ernest's abandoned suitcase (which still contains his severed hand), and she keeps it in anticipation of making an escape (without looking inside first, though).Meanwhile, a bizarre figure begins to lurk around the orphanage, a lumbering bald man in a plaid shirt and with a face that appears to be deformed or burned. As Ellie sleeps, she awakens to see the man hovering over her bed, brandishing a hammer. When she screams, Mrs. Deere and the others come running but the man is gone. Mrs. Deere tells Ellie she just had a nightmare, but Ellie insists it was real. The next day, Bunch arranges for Ellie to catch her seducing Walter in the shed, and Ellie angrily storms off, telling Walter she's leaving the orphanage. Walter goes to Mrs. Deere and tells her that Ellie intends to escape, and Mrs. Deere confronts Ellie, who tells her she'd rather leave the home than stay and be murdered by the hammer-wielding madman. In turn, Mrs. Deere locks Ellie in her room and plots with Krege to kill her by locking her in the freezer. Their plan is foiled by Pete, who accidentally sees Krege kidnapping Ellie and putting her in the basement freezer. Once inside, Ellie discovers the bodies of the runaway children hanging from meathooks, and she faints. Pete tells Bunch about what he saw, and convinces her to investigate with him, but Bunch doesn't hear anything in the locked freezer and leaves.Suddenly Mullins shows up and demands to search the home, having learned about supposed runaway children from Calvin Carruthers. Mrs. Deere and Krege lure him down to the basement, where Krege strikes him in the back with a cleaver and kills him. They open the freezer to put him inside and are suddenly attacked by the grotesque stranger, who fights Krege with his hammer. Ellie revives and escapes, although Mrs. Deere sees her at the last minute and tries to stop her. Ellie runs outside, where the other kids are working, and tells them what happened to her. Walter becomes furious with her, screaming at her about how she is overreacting, but Pete confirms what she says. Ellie runs off, encouraging everyone else to do the same. Pete wants to join her, but all of the other kids just stand there and stare. Walter points out that they have no place to go.In the basement, the disfigured man strikes a death blow to Krege's head and runs off after Ellie, leaving Mrs. Deere alone. It seems as if Mrs. Deere's problems are over, now that Krege has been mortally wounded and Ellie has the madman chasing after her. Mrs. Deere drags Krege by his legs into the freezer, where she tells him she intends to leave him, to "save" him. He begs her not to leave him in there to die, but she tells him "Why Tom, all your friends are here!" But before she can leave, Jennifer appears in the doorway of the freezer, staring at Mrs. Deere, who screams in horror as Jennifer slams the door, locking her inside the freezer.Outside, Ellie is running through the woods with the madman close behind. She attempts to hide in a bush and discovers Ernest's decomposing body. Her screams summon the madman, who runs up to her brandishing the hammer. Ellie suddenly screams at him that she didn't mean to hurt him, she only meant to hurt her mother, revealing that Ellie herself was the one who murdered Edna. Knowing that she herself was the killer, Ellie thinks the disfigured man is Edna's john who was in bed with her that night, badly burned and out for revenge. But the man removes the grotesque face to reveal Calvin underneath. He reveals that he caught on to the truth about Ellie when he discovered the real john's body within crawling distance of the burned house. He just wanted to force Ellie to confess to him that she was the killer all along. Ellie is confused when he says he doesn't want to arrest her, he wants to marry her. "If you were my wife, I couldn't turn you in, it wouldn't be loyal." Ellie balks at first, due to their drastic age difference, but she relents when Calvin threatens to arrest her if she doesn't comply. Defeated, Ellie smiles at Calvin and says "Well, my other always told me that older men make the best husbands." In a final twist, Calvin tells her, "I bet your mother never told you that I was the first man who ever made love to her." Ellie collapses in shock and hysterics, realizing that her own father has deliberately sought her out, not with the intention to 'rescue' her but to marry her and have children with her.

Review: After her whore of a mother is murdered by a hammer-wielding nutjob, teen Ellie Masters is sent to live at the rural Deere Orphanage.
As she deals with this sadistic twosome, Ellie also realizes that she's being stalked by a masked creep with a claw hammer.Often referred to as the sickest PG film ever, I had wanted to see this for years.
The ending is a real kick in the balls.Gloria Grahame and Len Lesser own the film as the pair of crazies who will get those welfare checks at any cost.
After her prostitute mother is murdered, teen aged Ellie Masters (Melody Patterson) is sent to an isolated orphanage run by Mrs. Deere (Gloria Grahame) and her handyman (Len Lesser, now known as Uncle Lou on "Seinfeld").
Lots of unpleasant surprises are in store for Our Heroine, not the least of which is the fact that Mrs. Deere and her handyman are both brutal sadists, who run the orphanage like a concentration camp.
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.
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!
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.
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..
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.
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.
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..
"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!
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.
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.
Particularly Gloria Grahame (as Mrs. Deere) and Len Lesser (Tom) portray nightmarish characters you certainly don't want to interfere with.
"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.
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.
This movie has everything I love in a B budget horror flick, including twisted content, interesting actors (who doesn't love Mel from Alice and Uncle Leo?), surprise ending and nostalgia.
but i never did find such information.I guess a DVD with features and commentaries would be really welcomed.....PLEASE before everybody involved with this film is DEAD!!!!!Anyway,first comes the murders....than comes about 20 minutes of dull time but after that, the whole thing becomes really interesting.i'm only giving it a 5 because i dislike gore and it lacks sex appeal but i liked most of it...
the suspense,the mystery and the surprise revelations at the end.The film doesn't contain any nudity even though it touches on subjects such as attempted rape or incest.it doesn't contain any real bad language either unless you are offended by words like hell or bitch!!.
Melody Patterson(better known as "Wrangler Jane" on TV's "F Troop") plays a young girl whose prostitute-mother is brutally murdered.
Patterson's problems go from bad to worse when she is sent to an orphanage where the superintendent(Gloria Grahame, who's excellent) has her handyman(Len Lesser) murder those of her charges who try to run away.
Remarkably brutal and unrelenting for its time, BLOOD AND LACE has been called one of the sickest PG-rated movies ever made and that it is, but I loved it anyway!
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.
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!
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.
Very soon, as she is without parents, Ellie is sent to an orphanage run by twisted Mrs. Deere (Gloria Grahame) and creepy handyman Tom Kredge (Len Lesser).
She didn't do much after that, and there was a 16-year absence before a final film.She is a young girl here whose mother died, and now she is placed in a creepy foster home run by Oscar winner Gloria Grahame, who you may remember as Violet on It's a Wonderful Life.Of course, I did not like the social worker who placed Ellie (Patterson).
As a former placement official myself, I did not have sex with the group home owners like he did.Vic Tayback (Mel from Alice) is a detective who has a thing for Ellie, and so does the drunken handyman.Ellie soon runs afoul of the owner (Graham) and her handyman (Len Lesser).
After her prostitute mother and a client are brutally beaten to death with a hammer, teenager Ellie (Melody Patterson) goes to live at a boarding house ran by the rather sadistic Mrs. Deere (Gloria Grahame).
BLOOD AND LACE is a pretty nasty little film that plays out more like a Hitchcock thriller than just a straight horror film.
Blood and Lace (1971)Even for a horror movie depending on camp to survive this one is bad.
I really wanted to see what Gloria Grahame was up to late in her career, and I suppose in a way she's one of the best part of the movie, but even she was a disappointment--in her case not campy enough.
Let's just call it a fluke, a forgettable movie with a thin plot and bad filming and mediocre acting.
Slasher Elements in the Pre-Slasher Era. 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.
Yes, memories fade and blur with time, including some plot details like the girl in the attic being tied up for running away instead of not folding her napkin at the dinner table(I hope the little girl who saw fit to call me a "dumb***" in her review has a better memory when she's my age).
I recommend this movie for anyone who likes a scary, but kind of campy 70's horror flick..
Ellie and a Bevy of Sleazy Men. Not a bad little horror/thriller, "Blood and Lace" tells the story of sexy young Ellie Masters (Melody Patterson), daughter of town tramp Miss Masters, who is orphaned when her mother is murdered after servicing a client.
Too young to move out on her own, social worker Mullins (Milton Selzer) places her in an orphanage operated by the demented Miss Deere (Gloria Grahame) and her sleazy handyman (Seinfeld's Len Lesser).Ellie has nightmares of a man haunting her--chasing her with a hammer.
In fact, there are some rather absurd plot developments, like Gloria Grahame keeping murdered children in a meat locker and dragging them out for headcounts when Mr. Mullins stops by.
Also, Tayback's unconventional methods at luring out the killer are foolish).ACTING: $$$ (Gloria Grahame, a Hollywood heavy-hitter, does her best in this low-budget film.
Len Lesser, Uncle Leo on "Seinfeld," is terrific as Gloria's greedy henchman and Vic Tayback is delightfully sleazy as the police detective with more than a professional interest in Ellie.
leading lady is 22 and she looks it I cannot complain about "Blood and Lace" because it's a cheesy horror film--it unabashedly is and sometimes this sort of movie is fun to watch.
For starters I was actually bored most of the way through and while there were some decent performances (mainly the villains), it just failed to ignite a spark, for starters it seems to drag in places to get to the good stuff, and when it do finally happens, it's just not enough bloodshed and when it gets to the end, everything just seems rushed and unsatisfying.When the main character gets sent to the children's home, it does glimmer interest from time to time, especially when the owner is totally wacko who she and her right hand man murders any children who try to escape.
You've got one of the great 40's, 50's, 60's (sometimes B-movie actress) with Len Lesser (who was on the TV show Alice) and a guy running around who looks exactly like Dustin Hoffman in the old man scenes of Little Big Man (Same exact face/make-up/whatever) in a cheesy exploitatation drive-in movie that totally wakes you up!This is not some bad trashy, low-budget psycho flick about crazy murderers.
Orson Welles saw this film and liked it (not because he was friends of Gloria Grahame).
It's a pathetic "horror" film about an ophanage run by Gloria Grahame (sad) and dealing with a young, talentless girl Elle who is sent there after her mother, the town tramp, was beaten to death with a hammer (graphically shown).
Not to be confused with the Mario Bava film "Blood and Black Lace", this is a low-budget, all-American horror effort that is mostly forgotten now, but was quite ahead of its time back in 1970.
The movie has the flavor of a WIP film minus the lesbian sex and shower scenes (although this is one of those strange orphanages that seems to cater almost exclusively to sexy and very mature-looking teenage girls).
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.
From its lurid, brutal double murder sequence at the opening (love that hammer-cam!), "Blood and Lace" is an entirely unforgettable film.
***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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.