A few years before Michael Myers donned the white Captain Kirk mask to terrorize his family and neighborhood, there was another slasher in a mask. She wore a translucent vac-formed creepy glamour mask painted with heavy air-brushed makeup. It was like a comedy and tragedy mask you might find in a prop trunk at the back of a theater; as innocuous as Jason Voorhees‘ hockey mask, but just as scary in the context of someone wielding a knife as long as her own arm. As if in a modern Korean horror, she wore a conspicuous yellow raincoat. Scratch that. Like an innocent child, such as Georgie Denbrough from Stephen King’s It, she was harmless. Or was she? Everyone thought she was the killer except her own parents. Did Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) murder her younger sister, Karen, before her first Holy Communion? Even her Aunt Annie said so. And she should know. She had a kitchen knife thrust into her legs in the stair well multiple times in Alice’s own apartment building. She would know her own niece!
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Alice Spages (Paula E. Sheppard) is the disgruntled older sister of Karen Spages (Brooke Shields). Their church-going single mother (divorced) is raising them in a Paterson, New Jersey walk up. Alice feels neglected (in a killer origin sort of way), and she terrorizes Karen relentlessly (in a growing up in a dysfunctional family sort of way). Isn’t anyone in Google land going to talk about what the two-faced porcelain doll they are fighting over is supposed to represent? Creepy! Back then, it wasn’t uncommon to have dolls with more than one face. A bonnet covered the crying side when you wanted a happy baby. Still, though… creepy Malignant (2021) vibes. Director Alfred Sole had to mean something with this prop choice.
Absent from her First Communion, Karen is found dead inside a backroom pew when a nun investigates the smell of smoke. We got to witness the murder shortly before that. The killer places Karen’s lit candle on top of her before closing the bench seat on her strangled body. There was no mistaking Alice’s mask and raincoat. But now who will she torment?
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The string heavy score is unmistakably horror, and the Columbo look-alike, Detective Spina (Michael Hardstark) is a prototype for Dr. Loomis, coolly observing and sensibly analyzing everyone involved while playing the role of the decoder for the audience. The atmosphere is strong ’70s classic thriller/horror with heavy religious overtones reminiscent of 1973’s The Exorcist. No doubt its success played a part inspiriting the production of Alice, Sweet Alice; originally titled Communion when it premiered a year prior to major release at the Chicago International Film Festival. Apparently, Alice is more directly inspired by Don’t Look Now (1973) in which Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie investigate the untimely death of their daughter.
With themes of religious criticism, pedophilic dialogue between authority figures, casual infidelity, comments on menstruation, and nudity on the walls of the precinct (it was a different time, I guess) there’s a lot to be uncomfortable with. Sole made sure viewers were constantly uncomfortable, using close-ups that showed more wrinkles and skin discoloration than you’ll ever witness in HD. Shot angles always feel like the camera is about to fall, and actors look and speak directly into the camera so often it feels like a bad trip. It’s no surprise Alfred Sole was also production designer for S. Darko (2009). Take a look at any Italian horror from the ’60s and ’70s, and you’ll see where Sole was influenced.
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The colorful cast of characters rounds out this choppy thriller. Bonus if you grew up at that time in urban North East. The aged accents and borough settings will remind you of home. Sole grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, and it shows. His attention to detail, all the way down to the urine-stained drawers of the obese recluse of a landlord showed he knew the inside of a Brownstone or a walk-up railroad apartment. Creaky staircases with wobbly rails, and an abundance of off-screen pigeons you could practically smell made the gritty parts real. Brick, lace, and Formica were the primary colors of tri-state area church districts at the time.
Your appreciation for slasher films cannot be confirmed until you’ve taken a close look at where they come from. Before killers became franchise characters, they were unexpected surprises lost to a time when sequels weren’t the goal. Cold, stiff endings were. This one shot deserves your attention if you’ve never seen it. If you have seen it then it may be time to revisit. After 45 years Alice, Sweet Alice hasn’t soured yet.
