Steel and Lace is exactly the kind of early-’90s direct-to-video oddity I love finding through Vinegar Syndrome. The setup is basically rape-revenge filtered through sci-fi horror: a robotics engineer brings his dead sister back as a cyborg so she can go after the men who destroyed her life. It’s nasty, pulpy, and way more ambitious than I expected.
The practical effects are the big selling point for me. Once the revenge scenes start, the movie gets creative with the cyborg angle and gives the kills a lot more personality than a generic thriller would have. Bruce Davison, Stacy Haiduk, and David Naughton also give the cast a little extra genre cred. (vinegarsyndrome. com)
The Blu-ray treatment is excellent too. Vinegar Syndrome restored it in 2K from a 35mm interpositive, includes both the intended 1. 33:1 framing and the more commonly seen 1. 78:1 version, plus a director commentary and a big making-of documentary. The embossed Robert Sammelin slipcover looks killer too. (vinegarsyndrome. com)
Sleazy, violent, weirdly heartfelt, and very much a product of the video-store era. Definitely staying in the collection. 😁