Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)

Thanks for the memories!

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's a little eerie and in the beginning looks like there's some potential. A lot of reviewers said it stuck with them, the only thing that sticks with me is the overacting. The killer, which is easy to figure out from about ten minutes into the movie, makes no sense! The motives are ludicrous. There are so many better eerie horror movies to watch. Anything by Alfred Hitchkok for example, at least he put in some thought and it made bloody sense.

Over the weekend I attended the Horrorathon at the Hi-Way drive in. The first two films Evil Dead, and The House by the Cemetery were great. I was really looking forward to Alice, Sweet, Alice. The entire film is quite disturbing. The score is very dark and moody, and the film uses religious imagery in a very morbid way. At the church school that they attend, all of the girls wear yellow raincoats which makes it seem that Alice could be the killer. Not more than 10 minutes into the movie, Alice's sister Karen is stuffed into a church pew on her first communion and set on fire. The scene is extremely dark, and the suspense that's built on whether or not Alice is her killer plays out through the movie. It was really awesome seeing this on 35 mm film at midnight in the woods. I can see this movie being very controversial for the time when it was released. Once we find out that the masked killer is actually the house keeper of the church it really made me feel like there was a message about organized religion. In Mrs. Tredoni using her religion to despise Alice because she was born before her parents were married, calling her mother a whore at the altar, and stabbing the priest in the throat after being denied communion really made the point in saying that not all who are "holy" are good people. Overall, I enjoyed this movie a lot. There wasn't a ton of character development. The camera work was really good, especially the scene where Mrs. Tredoni pushes Dominic to his death after he swallows her crucifix.

The 1970's really did produce some fine horror movies that provided a lot of fear and chills as many of the scenes were done so real and shocking the kills and the gore of the blood scenes looked so shocking and it chilled the viewer. And "Alice Sweet Alice" clearly fits the descriptions of that the story is somewhat different with murder and religion and it involves a withdrawn little girl and an older woman with a secret that causes her to be for revenge.Set in 1950's Patterson, New Jersey ten year old Karen(in one of Brooke Shields's very early screen roles)is all of a sudden killed in a shocking and violent bloody manner in church on the day of her first communion, and her older sister Alice(Paula Sheppard)who's different and withdrawn appears for sure the prime suspect. Yet the film becomes more deviant and filled with bloody drama as more of Alice's family members and people who live in her apartment complex are attacked.Just when you think you have it figured out this movie takes a shocking twist as the past full of secrets prove that another person is doing the killings. Overall this film isn't mainstream, but for a 1970's horror film it's one of the better ones that entertains with suspense, gore, blood, and it twist with a shocking surprise reveal of the truth behind the killings at communions, "Alice Sweet Alice" is a cut above many classic horror films.

After a young girl (Brooke Shields) is brutally murdered during her first communion, her strange and withdrawn older sister (Paula E. Sheppard) becomes the main suspect.There are some odd rumors circulating about this film. Allegedly, Bill Lustig worked as a second-unit director, but there seems very little to confirm that. Also, this was alleged to be an attack on the Catholic Church in response to the director getting excommunicated for his involvement in pornography. These aspects appear to be true, or at least director Alfred Sole claims them to be. Apparently a bishop's house was in the adult film, "Deep Sleep", and this was upsetting. Sole was even indicted on federal obscenity charges.What is absolutely true is that this film is criminally underrated. An amazing plot (not unlike the giallo films of the 60s and 70s), a great mystery, a cool killer with a creepy mask (inspired in part by the raincoat in Nic Roeg's "Don't Look Now" and in part by "The Sad Seed"), and solid direction and acting from top to bottom.Even more interestingly, this film was released in 1976, and is obviously a slasher film. This puts it before "Halloween", after "Black Christmas", and well before the slasher boom of the 1980s. The style and plot elements are very much ahead of its time in that respect.As of 2016, the film is expected to be remade by Dante Tomaselli, who happens to be Alfred Sole's cousin. If nothing else, the new film (if it happens) will shine more light on the original.