Dave Stewart

Proto-Slashers: Looking at the flicks that paved the way for Halloween and the heyday of slasher movies.

Blood and Lace (1971)

Proto-Slashers: Looking at the flicks that paved the way for Halloween and the heyday of slashers.

“Lurid”. What a great word. It promises the taboo and the gruesome. And it’s the perfect word to describe “Blood and Lace”, the 1971 picture from AIP. In fact, the sleaze factor is a key element in this sick little flick’s success.

Not to be confused with Mario Bava’s “Blood and Black Lace”, “Blood and Lace” follows almost-21-year-old Ellie Masters (Melody Patterson from TV’s “F-Troop”), as she’s placed in an orphanage after the murder of her mother, the town tramp (It’s fun to watch as more and more male cast member reveal their trysts with the deceased). Unfortunately, the childrens’ home is run by the sadistic Mrs. Deere, played by Gloria Grahame (“It’s a Wonderful Life”, “The Bad and the Beautiful”) who routinely tortures her non-compliant charges and has them killed when they attempt to run away. In order to make sure she continues to receive cash from the county for the dead kids, Mrs. Deere freezes their bodies, only taking them out of the walk-in when the inspector comes to count heads.

Adding immeasurably to the sleaze level is a couple of great character actors. Len Lesser, known to millions of sitcom fans as Uncle Leo from “Seinfeld”, is on hand as Mrs. Deere’s drunken assistant who’s also an ace with a meat cleaver, and Vic Tayback, Mel from TV’s “Alice”, is an overly involved detective who wants to make sure that no harm befalls Ellie. Add to that a hammer-wielding psycho with a burned face who is lurking around the orphanage, and you’ve got yourself a prime example of an exploitation flick from the genre’s Golden Age.

Do any research about “Blood and Lace” and four key references continually pop up. The first is the quote attributed to Michael Weldon in his invaluable “Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film”, wherein he calls the flick “One of the sickest PG-rated films ever made…” A second point of interest is the casting of an incredibly young Dennis Christopher (“Fade to Black”, “Breaking Away”) as one of the orphans. Thirdly, you’ll find claims that the crispy-faced psycho is a forerunner of Freddy Krueger, but in my estimation, that’s pushing it. The fourth, and most directly slasher-related note is that the opening scene seems to have influenced the beginning of John Carpenter “Halloween” where Michael spies on his sister and her boyfriend, eventually killing the former. In “Blood and Lace” we enter a house from the killer’s POV, through the kitchen where we pull open a drawer and remove a murder weapon (in this case, a hammer). We enter a bedroom, and a murder is committed from the killer’s POV. From there, the two movies spin off into wildly different territory, but it’s interesting to see this connection. Carpenter’s movie is by far the better work, but inspiration has to come from somewhere, non?

“Blood and Lace” was another of those late shows I caught while I was a kid in the 70’s, it’s plot holes and iffy ethics sticking in my head like its images of hammer-smashed faces, severed limbs and frozen kids. The attractive Patterson makes an affable and engaging heroine, who’s all the more interesting for not always being the nicest kid on the (ice) block. You really get the sense that her character is at the mercy of fate, or at least Mrs. Deere and the always-leering adult male cast members. As Mrs. Deere, Graham is a terrific and creepy case study in quiet insanity.

The only feature directed by Philip S. Gilbert, “Blood and Lace” is a fun and twisted horror flick with a link to one of the pillars of the slasher genre. It’s also a movie that is criminally neglected and currently unavailable on DVD, though it’s a prime candidate for MGM’s Midnight Movie series, as they hold the rights for AIP’s output. I was lucky enough to revisit this flick via a descent grey market DVD-R from one of several companies offering this disc. “Blood and Lace” holds a few more sick surprises than what I’ve revealed here, and if you’ve ever had the urge to see what “The Brady Bunch” would look like if Carol went nuts and kept Mike’s corpse in a walk-in freezer while taking her frustrations out on the kids and Sam the butcher got handy with a hammer, this lurid little flick’s for you!

“Little fishies in a brook, Papa’s hanged you on a hook”

Do we agree that “Psycho” is the grandfather of slasher flicks, and that “Halloween” is the film that jump-started the craze during its heyday? If so, that means there was a solid 18 year gap between Hitchcock’s and Carpenter’s flicks, but it doesn’t mean that there weren’t lots of embryonic slashers slicing their way across North America’s drive-in screens during that time. One of these bloody beauties was Francis Ford Coppola’s first feature film as a solo director, “Dementia 13″.

The story goes that Coppola convinced producer Roger Corman to give him a few thousand dollars to shoot a film using cast members and the Irish setting from “The Young Riders”, the film they had been shooting for AIP. Though Coppola’s role on the racing pic was that of a sound technician and not director, Corman agreed as long as Coppola would create a “Psycho” knock-off that used the number 13 in its title; this isn’t so weird considering that AIP was infamous for creating its movie posters first, then making films based on the posters! Following Corman’s stipulations, Coppola quickly hammered out a screenpaly, and the shooting of “Dementia 13″ was underway. Rumour has it, though, that Jack Hill, the director of terrific genre flicks like “Spider Baby”and “Switchblade Sisters”, was called in after production to shoot additional scenes.

So what premise did the 20-something Coppola deliver?

Hiding the fact that her husabnd has recently died, Louise (Luana Anders) visits her in-laws in Ireland, intent on ensuring her place in the Haloran family inheritance. There she finds that Lady Haloran (Eithne Dunne) and her brothers-in-law, Billy (Bart Patton) and Richard (William Campbell), are haunted by the drowning death of Kathleen, the youngest of the Haloran children, years earlier. Louise starts scheming, but soon an axe murder is hacking through the Haloran family and its associates. It’s up to family doctor Justin Caleb (Patrick Magee) and Richard’s fiancée Kane (Mary Mitchel) to find out just who’s so handy with that axe.

Though the plot of “Dementia 13″ is full of holes, the movie itself is loaded with atmosphere and memorable scenes: the rowboat ride, Louise’s night swim, Lady Haloran’s visit to Kathleen’s playhouse, the groundskeeper’s fox hunt, among others. And let’s face it, slasher flicks are all about suspense and “big scenes”, those moments that either feature gory FX or unforgettable sequences. For a movie released in 1963, “Dementia 13″ is surprisingly graphic, though by 80’s slasher standards, it’s fairly mild. I first caught “D-13″ on the late show when I was about 8 years old way back in the 70’s (my first slasher flick), and it scared the hell out of me. Watching it today, the shocks still have impact, it’s a fun, eerie watch, and a definite link in the chain from Hitchcock to Carpenter. “Dementia 13″ is widely available on a number of budget-priced DVD releases, and it’s a must see for anyone interested in the evolution of the slasher flick.