April 21, 2009 When I started eSplatter back in 1999, many of the horror films that are now ubiquitous were out-of-print gems available only on EBay. "Deep Red," "Return of the Living Dead", "The Burning" and even "The Evil Dead" were out of print with no re-release date in sight.

A lot has changed. But even with just about every decent horror movie that fans are aware of now out on DVD, there are still a bunch of unreleased gems that have yet to make their way to DVD -- and have absolutely, positively no release date in sight. In fact, you can't even find many excellent, unreleased horror titles on Ebay anymore. But they are worth tracking down at conventions.

So here's a new feature to celebrate the forgotten horrors that are likely to remain unavailable and unmentioned in most of the horror Web-o-sphere. Our first "forgotten horror" to profile is ...




Blood and Lace (1971)

Why is this film unjustly forgotten? Only because it's opening sequence clearly inspired John Carpenter's opening murder scene in "Halloween". Plus, it's a damn fine horror movie. Probably the sickest PG horror movie ever made. With child TV star Melody Patterson in her first "adult" role as a teenage girl whose whore mother is murdered, before she is sent off to a foster home, this film doesn't have a hook to make it a must-release DVD title. But it deserves a release.

Patterson's character ends up in an insane, sick foster home run by a sadistic house mother (Gloria Grahame). Rebellious kids bent on escaping are murdered by the handyman, then frozen so their bodies an be kept for inspections by the county. They're kept in a "sick room" and inspectors are told the kids are asleep with a fever.

Meanwhile, Patterson's mother's (apparent) killer is stalking her too.

A lot of great films remind me of this movie, including Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects", and of coure "Halloween." But good luck finding it anywhere. Incredibly, the film used to air Saturday afternoons on KTVU Channel 2, during their afternoon Chiller Diller features.

Director Philip Gilbert never made another movie, while writer Gil Lasky wrote and produced "The Manhandlers" in the mid-1970s. Click here for our review. And click here to sign the online petition to have films from the studio that released this film -- AIP -- released to DVD via Sony and MGM, which apparently own the rights.



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