Welcome to my new short series called Hippie Hotties where I plan to talk about a hippie-era movie that stretched the limits of free love and sex by showing off some sexy nudes on the big screen. This era of experimentation led to some pretty far-out films, so let's take a look!
Today's Hippie Hotties is going into the realm of sexploitation. Mantis in Lace, also known as Lila, is a sexploitation flick all about drugs and danger. William Rotsler directed this story that stars Susan Stewart and Pat Barrington. There are also two cuts of this film. One has a lot more sex and the other has a lot more violence. The movie was also released under the title Lila with the opening credits also reading "Lila", but honestly, I love the title Mantis in Lace and I do think that it is a good description for the mayhem that follows. As the tagline reads: she loved them...to death! Check out the trailer here to get an idea of what we are in for:
The trailer describes the entire vibe of the film best: "She turns men on. She turns them off, turns them every way but loose. She...is a mantis in lace!" and "Lila believes the family that lays together, plays together...and slays together." Dun dun dun! That's right: this film is equal parts sex and death. This psychedelic trip will have you grooving one minute and then watching bloodshed the next. At least there is a lot of hotness throughout. Lila is played by Susan Stewart who is a happy-go-lucky go-go dancer that strips at a club on the Sunset Strip. Her entire life is changed when she takes LSD one day. It makes her turn into a psychokiller! Qu'est-ce que c'est?
What exactly makes this an exploitation film? It's the gratuitous sex, drugs, and violence in a low-budget film. The movie, like other exploitation films, refers to those things over plot and actual good filmmaking. That said, this film employs one of my favorite hippie movie tropes: the psychedelic cinematography to show us drug trips. I just love them! Critics called the movie "a very strange trip with lots of tits and little sense." Honestly, that pretty much sums it all up. That being said, if you love a trippy hippie movie with TA, then Mantis in Lace is going to be a good time for you.
Another bare babe in the movie is played by Pat Barrington, another go-go dancer. Lila is the main killer queen in the movie who has bad LSD trips and winds up killing men that she is trying to pick up at the bar, but Pat's character helps her. With yabos like Pat's, it looks like she's the one who needs help carrying those killer cans around.
The title refers to Mantises who kill their male lovers after sex by eating them after breeding. The lace refers to, obviously sexiness. The idea in this film is that Lila and her ladies tend to consume men by killing them after they've had their fun.
As I said, this is an exploitation film, so it is not supposed to be an Oscar-winning movie. It is just supposed to be fun and this film is definitely both sexploitation and hippiesploitation since it deals with bad acid trips. These acid eaters are here to kill with their killer bodies which is exactly what makes this confusing film so much to watch. Trust me, you'll forgive the flaws once you watch these dance sequences. Try this one:
