Sam Panico Alfred Sole's 1976 horror thriller Alice, Sweet Alice is that rare horror flick that contains several twists and turns, yet holds onto its ability to shock and disturb even after the surprises are known. Be warned, in talking about this fantastic film and its creepy, multilayered pleasures, I will reveal the identity of the killer.Catherine Spages (Linda Miller) is divorced from her ex-husband, Dom (Niles McMaster). She lives in a tenement apartment building with their two daughters, Alice (Paula Shepard) and Karen (Brooke Shields). Aside from the pressure of raising the girls without her husband, Catherine is challenged by the rivalry between them; twelve-year-old Alice seems resentful of the attention that her younger sister gets. She terrorizes Karen in a number of ways, including frightening her with a Halloween mask, stealing the girl's favorite doll, and manhandling the veil Karen is to wear on her first Holy Communion. The parish's handsome young priest, Father Tom (Rudolph Willrich) also gives Karen a lovely family heirloom rosary as a gift, furthering Alice's motivations for antagonizing her sister.The family and the parish are shaken when Karen is murdered on the day of her first communion. She is attacked by a small figure wearing a child's yellow raincoat and a mask, the same Halloween mask that Alice possesses; after strangling the child to death, the killer hides her body inside a chest and sets it on fire. Devastated by the loss of her daughter, Catherine's emotional state begins to unravel, leaving Alice even more unstable than before. Could she be responsible?Of course the movie toys with this idea, and Alice herself is a fascinating character, memorably played by actress Paula Sheppard. Sheppard only appeared in one other film, the 1984 cult classic Liquid Sky, before turning her back on acting and leading a private life. Here, she is the dark core of the film, an ambiguous character who veers between a glowering menace and a frightened child. The story captures her during a moment of age into young adulthood, ultimately demonstrating the ways that adult conflicts can affect the course of a child's development. Older than her sister, Alice is affected more deeply by the separation of her parents. Often silent and sullen, she is possibly even dangerous, as evidenced by a scene where she seems to kill a kitten with her bare hands when her lecherous landlord tries to molest her. Most likely, the story establishes these characteristics in Alice so that we believe she could indeed be responsible for the murder of her sister, as well as a violent stabbing attack that is carried out on her manipulative, overbearing aunt Annie (wonderfully characterized by actress Jane Lowry with all the exaggerated shock tactics of a drag queen).Alice, however, is not the film's killer. In a twist that predates the sudden arrival of Mrs. Voorhees at the conclusion of Friday the 13th, Mildred Clinton emerges as the mad slasher who carries out her violent revenge on those around her that she deems wicked. She plays Mrs. Tredoni, the rectory's housekeeper, who we learn had a young daughter who died on the day of her First Holy Communion (shades of Friday the 13th again). Further defying expectations is the fact that the reveal isn't made at the end, but with the final third still ahead. She pulls off the mask for a reveal just as she murders Dominic, a character we may have thought would be the hero of the movie. Mrs. Tredoni's motivations for carrying out this bizarre form of revenge stem from many places; in retrospect, we can see that she targeted Catherine because she considers her a 'whore' due to her divorce. Also, she feels a desire to see her own loss of a child inflicted on another woman. She dresses like Alice during the attacks in order to throw suspicion on her, perhaps recognizing that Alice is also a 'bad' girl. But also, Mrs. Tredoni harbors a love for the handsome Father Tom that may go beyond her devotion to the church. After murdering Karen, she reclaims the rosary that Father Tom gave her, a clue that Dominic takes to his death by using his teeth to pull it off the crazed woman and swallowing it.Mrs. Tredoni is one distorted character, but yet another is Catherine's obese landlord, portrayed by Alphonso DeNoble. With ghoulish circles under his eyes, pale white skin, and a tendency to talk to his cats in a high falsetto voice, DeNoble nearly steals the show. Jane Lowry, as Aunt Annie, also makes a meal out of the scenery, playing a shrewish woman who serves as yet another bad role model for Alice Spages. Annie addresses everyone in the film as if she's a schoolteacher talking to a petulant student, and orders her weakling husband around like a drill instructor. Linda Miller as Catherine possesses few of these overblown qualities, herself being the 'normal' woman surrounded by horrible people-one of whom wants to destroy her life.One intense moment in the film is a good indicator of the film's haunting tone; Catherine comes to the rectory to wait for her ex-husband, who has been helping her cope with the loss of their daughter. She's welcomed by Mrs. Tredoni, who we know has just murdered the man, but she has trouble keeping up a pleasant facade with Catherine, and grows increasingly agitated. While revealing her own tragic past, she suddenly picks up a large knife and casually aims it directly at Catherine. Moments later, news arrives of Dominic's murder, and Mrs. Tredoni relishes Catherine's screams of anguish.The film's horrifying climax furthers the contrast between Alice and Mrs. Tredoni, positioning them as similar personalities at different stages in their development as monsters. Having been spotted and identified by police at the scene of her latest crime, Mrs. Tredoni is pursued to the church, where Father Tom is saying mass and just about to give communion. At his own request, the detectives allow Father Tom to try to convince Mrs. Tredoni to go quietly with them. Unfortunately, he makes the mistake of refusing her communion after giving it to Catherine. Mrs. Tredoni, now furious beyond reason, pulls the large butcher knife out of her shopping bag and plunges it into Tom's throat. Tom dies in Mrs. Tredoni's arms as the police close in, and in the ensuing horror and panic, Alice slips away with Mrs. Tredoni's shopping bag containing the murder weapon. These events have almost certainly shaped Alice for the worse, perhaps beginning a new cycle of trauma, anguish and revenge.The movie was conceived and originally released as Communion, which is the title of the tie-in novelization. It returned in a limited release as The Mask Murders in 1977, and then was released more widely as Alice, Sweet Alice in 1978. It returned in 1981 with yet another title, Holy Terror, featuring an ad campaign that played up Brooke Shields' brief appearance in the film, despite the fact that she was about 10 when she made it (and the image of Shields in the ad was current!). Shot in New Jersey, the strange editing, sound design and overall look of the film is that of a European giallo. The fact that it's a period piece set in the early 1960s may also have something to do with the fact that it appears to be a European production, as if the film is a foreign storyteller's take on American angst and terror. It also draws a few themes from Nicolas Roeg's 1973 Don't Look Now, namely the use of yellow raincoats, a diminutive adult female killer who disguises herself as a little girl, and the climactic throat slashing with rivers of blood.The movie is not European, however, and director Sole actually grew up in New Jersey, although he did study architecture in Italy. Like the best horror directors, Sole takes familiar elements (working class families and the culture of Catholicism) and distorts them into grotesque caricatures to disturb and unnerve the audience. This slightly askew viewpoint, along with the performances Sole gets from his able cast, goes a long way in achieving that elusive goal of turning a seemingly ordinary world into a nightmare landscape. It's a shame he didn't keep going as a director; frustrated by industry politics, he abandoned directing in 1982, choosing instead to make a long career for himself as a production designer. I'd have loved to have seen him continue making films with modest budgets and the generous imagination he displays in Alice, Sweet Alice.
Roman James Hoffman Alice Spages is a 12 year old girl who is hating every minute of it. Her parents are divorced and she lives with her mother and little sister, Karen (Brooke Shields in her first screen appearance), who gets all of the attention at home. In addition, her overbearing aunt is hostile towards her and the landlord is a sleazy character indeed. So it's no wonder the girl has some problems…but could she really be the one behind the creepy plastic mask and yellow raincoat who is responsible for strangling Karen to death, putting her body in a casket, and burning it on the day of her first communion? Set up established, it quickly becomes clear as you watch the movie whether or not this is the case but this lack of suspense don't affect the movie in any way as the film has many other things going for it. Firstly, if we're talking about a slasher we need to ask about the kills: and kills, although not excessively gory in a Tom Savini way, don't disappoint in having have a fair amount of blood and gain something from lingering on the action a little longer than usual before cutting away. The film also pays homage to Nic Roeg's masterful psychic thriller 'Don't Look Now' (1973) in the use of a diminutive killer stalking our peripheral vision clothed in a striking raincoat, red in Roeg's film but yellow here. In addition, the film has an eerie score which complements the movie well and good performances from the cast, especially from Linda Miller who plays Alice's mother Catherine, and Paula Sheppard, who plays Alice herself.However, the overriding characteristic of the movie is the claustrophobic air of morbidity that comes from the lashings of Catholic iconography employed throughout the film and in far from sympathetic tones. Indeed, it wouldn't be far-fetched to call the film anti-Catholic as it not only provides the film with its emotional backdrop of repression and morbidity but is also used explicitly as motivations for the characters as the film progresses. In this way the film plays effectively as a counter-point to 'The Exorcist', released three years earlier, as both films present little girls on the cusp of puberty, living with their divorced mothers, as somehow threatening or evil. However, whereas the demonic excesses of 'The Exorcist' are regarded by many to be Catholic propaganda designed to get people back to church for fear that disbelief would permit evil to enter this realm, in total contrast 'Alice, Sweet Alice' suggests it is the mechanics of devout belief inherent in the Church which are evil. In this way, 'Alice Sweet Alice' is the far more subversive movie. Plus, an interesting coincidence is that Linda Miller is the wife of none other than Jason Miller…who played Father Karras in 'The Exorcist'!Still, despite the movie's well thought out universe and cinematic literacy, 'Don't Look Now' and 'The Exorcist' are still "better" movies in my opinion. Why? Hard to say, but possibly that these two movies engage on a wider level whereas 'Alice Sweet Alice' seems like a highly-polished rant from someone who hates the church which, while hard to disagree with, seems to lack a certain distance…plus the final scene is a little hokey. Still, this is nit-picking, the movie deserves far more recognition than it has received as it remains as chilling and relevant today as 40 years ago.
Bill Hollister The 70s, more than any other decade produced many what I would call "socially conscious horror movies" or message films. Alice Sweet Alice is no exception.Karen (Brooke Shields in an early role) plays Karen, a young girl who is about to receive her first communion.She is the darling, apple of her mother's eye and can do no wrong. Karen has an older sister, Alice (Paula Sheppard), who likes to go around in her yellow rain slicker scaring people,cursing, and giving them the evil eye. During Karen's communion, someone kills her and all suspicion falls on the outcast, Alice. Someone wearing a yellow rain slicker and plastic doll mask begins killing people in the town. Some suspect Alice, but is it really her?The remainder of the film focuses on Alice. Many people may have very mixed emotions about her. Are we supposed to like and care about her? She does come across as a bit bratty, foul mouthed and "off" but we can cut her some slack because she also has to deal with her emotionally detached mother (Linda Miller)not to mention the obese landlord, Mr. Alphonso. I,personally really like the Alice character.Paula Sheppard, who plays the role, does an excellent job. She looks like a normal 12 year old girl one moment, and a deranged psychopath the next. Her eyes and facial expressions speak volumes about what she is thinking. Sheppard was actually 19 at the time of filming and sadly would only appear in one other movie, the ultra weird Liquid Sky. A word or two must be said about Mr. Alphonso. He is quite unlike any other character you will see in a movie,horror or otherwise. He is bald,always wears a stained white tank top, weighs close to 400 pounds and eats cat food. There are also a few not so subtle hints that he dabbles in pedophilia. Alice has a few run ins with Mr. Alphonse.He is, in my opinion,one of the most disturbing characters ever in a movie.Alice Sweet Alice was directed by Alfred Sole who would later direct one of my favorite horror spoofs, Pandemonium. I do not know much about Sole or his upbringing but one senses that there is a bit of self referencing in this movie.It seems to be a very personal film for Sole and the fact that he grew up in the same state (New Jersey)where the film is set adds to this feeling.Catholicism plays an important role in movie. Many of the characters attend the same church that Karen was killed in. Every character in Alice Sweet Alice has emotional baggage and are often unhappy with their lives. Guilt combined with a dreary late season setting make the movie very pessimistic in its atmosphere. If you're looking for a fun, lighthearted horror movie, this is not the one to watch.The killer's identity and motive may become obvious to some as the movie progresses but it takes nothing away from the overall effectiveness of the film. Although filmed and set in the United States, it looks and feels more like a giallo, which at the time was more prevalent than the slasher movie.Overall I would give Alice Sweet Alice 8/10 plastic doll masks. It is available on DVD and comes well recommended from this reviewer. Just don't let Mr. Alphonso catch you sneaking around his apartment door.
