mantis in lace ( 1968 ) be and in four fairly equal quarter and a soft core skin flick and a psychedelic drug movie and a slasher horror film and a police procedural . in it and we meet lila ( susan stewart ) and a young and gorgeous topless dancer who take lsd one night with a guy she pick up . after hallucinate pretty severely for a while and lila kill the young dude with a screwdriver and chop him to bit with a meat cleaver . this scenario be repeat three or four time while a pair of ( surprisingly undorky ) l. a. cop try to track the maniac down . yup and that pretty much all this film have to offer . one of lila victim and i might add and be stuart lancaster and who might be a familiar face to all the rus meyer fan out there while another and a macho rapist and most certainly deserve to be dice at lila hand . the picture feel very padded with numerous topless dance number ( the opulently cantilever legend pat barrington look pretty impressive and actually and do a frenzied belly dance while come to think of it and she would do a bit of trip out herself that same year in the film the acid eater ) and long makeout scene and a lovemaking bout between the topless club manager and a job applicant that add nothing to the plot whatsoever and and load of colorful hallucination . it have be lensed by laszlo kovacs and who would depict an even more harrowing lysergic experience in the following year easy rider . ( actually and i find the aural component of lila trip much more freaky than the visuals . ) sadly and the viewer never learn anything concrete about lila background and or why the drug set her off the way it do while indeed and the only thing we can discover about her come from the film admittedly hypnotic theme song . conclude with an ironic albeit extremely telegraph end and mantis in lace be ultimately a real mixed bag while a psychedelic psycho curiosity that should have be well . oh . this something weird dvd feature over 100 minute worth of alternate film footage . far out and man .