Communion sanglante

I had never heard of Alice Sweet Alice until a a while back when it was on a list of overlooked horror films. I had never heard it mentioned as even a cult classic but I was intrigued. The 1970's produced some pretty good horror films. I went in with pretty low expectations and even though I can't say that this film blew me away I do think that it is better than your average slasher film.

I do know that the original title was Communion but they chose Alice Sweet Alice which is a lame title in my opinion. The film is about a spoiled 12 year old girl named Alice played by Paula Sheppard. She is jealous of her angelic 10 year old sister Karen who is played by Brooke Shields. One of her church's priests Father Tom gives Karen his mother's crucifix and Alice is very jealous. Alice torments Karen by taking one of her dolls and scaring her by wearing a weird translucent mask and a raincoat. She threatens Karen not to tell anyone. All of this is set up to make Alice look like a bad seed. On the day of her First Communion, Karen is strangled to death in the church transept by a person wearing a translucent mask and a yellow raincoat. Her body is stuffed into a bench compartment near the confessionals, which is set on fire with a candle, but not before her crucifix is ripped from her neck. This first murder is not gory but is very brutal. Alice comes into the church to receive her communion but is found to have Karen's veil. The film is pointing to her as the killer so obviously that it is not hard to figure she's really innocent. But of course she's so unlikable that the film leaves the possibility open. We see Alice's mother Catherine played by Linda Miller dealing with her grief along with her sister Annie who loves in to help. She does not get along at all with Alice. Catherine us divorced, but her ex husband Dominick comes to the funeral and wants to find out more about Karen's murder. The whole film is set up in a sort of melodramatic way. The performances are good but border on camp in some scenes. The killer keeps appearing going after others in Alice's life. The film is very tense and creepy at times. It also has alot of religious imagery. I don't think that directpr Alfred Sole is a big fan of Catholicism, he deals with sin, guilt and especially hypocrisy. Even though the film does have a simple even cheap.look it is well made. The image of the translucent mask and tge raincoat is very creepy. The film throws some clues on who the killer is but really wants to.keep the possibility that it could be Alice. When it us revealed who the killer actually is it is kind of confusing but all I can say is that the motivation is very similar to what was seen in David Fincher's Se7en. The final 30 minutes kind of lags a little butthe story is pretty involving.

The film is not really that bloody but the violence it does have is pretty brutal. It is a film that has been largely ignored in the mainstream but I think it is one of the better early slasher horror films of the 70's. At times,, it actually feels very much like an Italian giallo.

Very creepy and effective.

Grade: B

Alice, Sweet Alice is a hard movie to forget. Dealing with religious repression, mental illness, and child murder might make it sound like a depressing chore to sit through but director, Alfred Sole, loads the film with so many memorable images and set pieces and keeps things both gritty and grounded, but elevated and a bit campy at the same time which throws the viewer out of whack. There are also some very surprising deaths and attack scenes that you don't see coming and that's always a plus in a film like this.

Yahoo! One of my all-time favorites. Made in the 70s but set in the 60s in an uber-catholic world during the Kennedy administration, this movie is about catholic killings. It's magnif. Paula Sheppard is incredible, a wonderful actress at so young. Gotta love Brooke Shields. Such aplomb. She's like her own damn cult. The direction is many-layered. Asides like the landlord downstairs feel so right. That scene in the stairway when the aunt is stabbed is amaze! You can watch events on two different levels. The music is choice. A young girl is murdered during her first communion, right there in the church. Her barely-psycho sister is blamed but it doesn't quite fit. This is only the first murder.

Alice is a 12 year old brat with a real mean streak...she bullies her younger sister (an 11 year old Brooke Shields) and terrorizes a reclusive neighbor. When her sister is murdered in church everyone begins to wonder if she's crossed the line from a tiny terror to a psychotic.

It's the simplicity of the story and near perfect execution that made this a cult classic. It's got ambiance, a wonderful accompanying score, creative camera work (although a little too much of people looking directly into the camera). Paula Sheppard shines as Alice and sometimes just the look on her face gives you the feeling she's thinking up new ways to traumatize people. It's got great subtext with sibling rivalry, children coping with divorced parents and religious faith. Some of the editing feels a bit stiff and some of the acting is subpar but in a story like this it can add a bit to the 'creepy' factor.

I think this is one of those movies that gets a little better with age. 6.5 in 1976 7.5 in 2021

After a young Catholic girl, Karen (Brooke Shields), is brutally murdered during communion, suspicion falls on her emotionally disturbed older sister Alice (Paula E. Sheppard).

Director Alfred Sole's Alice Sweet Alice is the closest thing you will find to an American giallo: the death scenes are sudden and brutal, the score is haunting, the killer is distinctive in creepy plastic mask and yellow raincoat, and the film's overall atmosphere and aesthetic is redolent of many a Euro thriller/horror.

Admittedly, the film falls short of the best work of maestros Argento and Bava, the motive for the killings a little weak, and the pacing a tad pedestrian, while the identity of the killer is revealed way too early for my liking (true giallos generally wait until the very end before letting the cat out of the bag), but Sole conducts matters with an assured hand, presenting some striking visuals, and his cast give solid performances (with the exception of Jane Lowry as Alice's Aunt Annie, whose histrionics are waaaayy OTT).

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for Alphonso DeNoble as morbidly obese, cat-loving pervert Mr. Alphonso, who is wonderfully grotesque.