Director
Alfred Sole
Cast
Linda Miller - Catherine Spages
Paula Sheppard - Alice Spages
Brooke Shields - Karen Spages
Mildred Clinton - Mrs. Tredoni
Rudolph Willrich - Fr. Tom
Niles McMaster - Dom Spages
Somehow the movie Alice, Sweet Alice hasn't quite made it into a more prominent place among generally well-known movies in pop culture horror.
Annie moves in with Catherine for emotional support. However, she doesn't get along well with Alice and the two begin arguing.
With the original title Communion, which the movie was released under in London, Alice, Sweet Alice takes inspiration from the 1973 thriller Don't Look Now as well as from Alfred Hitchcock.
For a psychological slasher horror movie, it deserves to be named among titles such as Pyscho, The Omen, The Bad Seed, Carrie and dare I say, The Good Son.
It's a low-budget movie that's underrated among mainstream audiences, though horror enthusiasts and students who study it in film school are likely familiar with it. There's a lot in this film that's memorable, including it being actress Brooke Shields' film debut.
To begin with, the story is well told and engrossing.
Alice, Sweet Alice takes place in Paterson, New Jersey, where divorced mom Catherine Spages (Linda Miller) is raising her nine-year old daughter Karen (Brooke Shields) and 12-year old daughter Alice (Paula Shepperd).
As devout Catholics, Catherine is preparing Karen for her first Holy Communion while Alice carries some jealousy towards her young sister. Like any bout of sibling rivalry, Alice believes Karen gets more positive attention from mom than she does.
Alice has a creepy translucent face mask she uses to scare Karen after stealing her porcelain doll and running into a warehouse as her sister runs after her.
After scaring her sister, Alice threatens to hurt her if she tells anyone.
The sisters also wear yellow raincoats with the name of their Catholic school on them.
On the day of Alice's first Communion, Catherine can't find Alice anywhere while Mass is commencing.
Meanwhile, as the first Communicants process out from the sacristy, Karen is last in line. Just before she walks out, a person wearing the same translucent mask and yellow raincoat grabs her from behind and strangles her without witnesses present.
The masked person then places Karen's body into a bench compartment, and lays a lit Communion candle on top of the dead child's body.
After the priest distributes Communion to all the children and returns to the altar, Alice emerges from an adjacent room, and kneels down for Communion. As the priest sees Alice and returns to the Communion rail to give her the host, one of the nuns smells smoke coming from the sacristy. She follows the odor to the source, and discovers smoke wafting from the bench compartment. She opens it and screams right before the priest places the host on Alice's tongue.
Startled faithful inside the church all cram their way to see where the scream is coming from. Catherine's sister, Annie (Jane Lowry), sees her niece's dead body and rushes back into the church to stop Catherine from witnessing the horrific sight.
As the police investigation begins, Catherine and her ex-husband Dominick also begin investigating Karen's murder on their own.
Of course Catherine doesn't believe her daughter is responsible, though later begins to doubt if she is actually innocent.
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| Paula Sheppard in Alice, Sweet Alice |
Later, as Annie is heading downstairs in the apartment building, the same person with the translucent mask and yellow raincoat leaps out and begins stabbing her in the leg. Annie is able to escape, collapses out on the sidewalk in the pouring rain.
The apartment landlord, Mr. Alphonso (Alphonso DeNoble), who's familiar with his tenants, is suspect of Alice's involvement in Karen's death as he knows what she's hiding in the building's basement.
Alice doesn't shy from hurling insults and obscenities at Alphonso, even before Karen's death. He taunts her about his suspicions, and then tries molesting the girl. She escapes, however, and doesn't tell anyone what he tried to do.
Catherine goes to visit Annie in the hospital where Annie tells her, the doctors and authorities present that it was Alice who stabbed her.
Of course, Catherine doesn't believe it and pleads desperately with her sister not to blame Alice.
Alice, meanwhile, claims it was Karen who stabbed Annie stating she saw her sister. She's forced to stay in a psychiatric institute for evaluation while the investigation takes place.
The parish priest, Fr. Tom (Rudolph Willrich) who lives with an aging Monsignor in a parochial house along with their housekeeper, Mrs. Tridoni (Mildred Clinton), tries to help the family as best he can in this difficult situation.
There are a few slow moments in the movie, but it definitely makes up for these moments with an unexpected plot twist I didn't see coming. This twist is what starts the third act, which really intensifies the last part of the film.
It's worth mentioning actor Alphonso DeNoble's role in this movie, and recognizing him as an actor.
Not only did he star as the overweight, cat-loving, scummy landlord, DeNoble was also in two other horror movies - Blood Sucking Freaks and Night of the Zombies. The latter was his final role.
From what I have read, DeNoble shot himself after an incident in which he became stuck in a turnstyle due to his obesity. The event was supposedly reported in a newspaper, which must have been embarrassing for him. His performance in this movie deserves recognition as his acting is in his eyes and his demeanor. The audience knows he's a pervert just by his initial attitude towards Alice.
His performance is meant to gain the audience's disgust, and he manages to do precisely that in all his scenes. His character's appearance is disgusting and sloppy, matching the filthiness of his soul.
The camera angles are also memorable, adding to the tone of the film and playing into the tense situations. Some angles are birds-eye-views, while others are low angles making certain characters look menacing. In one scene, the camera is attached to Alice's bicycle as she rides it. I can't recall another movie from this period where the camera is used like this.
In fact, the camera work reminds me a bit of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining which was released four years later.
While watching Alice, Sweet Alice, I paid close attention to Linda Miller's performance. I wondered how an actor could convey the turmoil and grief of a mother whose daughter is murdered in such a horrific way, and inside their Church - a place of sanctuary - right in the middle of her child's first holy communion. And on top of that, she has to contend with the possibility her other daughter is responsible. It's such a chaotic state to be in, how does an actor relate to that in order to convey it realistically?
Miller pulled it off. Her character's emotions are everywhere. She's hysterical in some instances, as would be expected. In other moments, she's curled up on her Karen's bed holding tightly onto her raincoat with her mind deep in memories.
In other scenes, she's determined and resolute to find out who killed her daughter. Or, she's confused, emotionally defeated, and at the end of her wits when facing Alice's breakdown inside the psychiatric institute, wanting to take her home but unable to. There is a lot of different kinds of pain Miller portrays. Watching her character constantly switch emotions while attempting to cope is amazing.
The weight on her character's shoulders is incredible. I would love to know how she prepared for this role.
Incidentally, I learned that Linda Miller is the daughter of Jackie Gleason, and was married to Jason Miller (Fr. Karras from The Exorcist) for a short while. And Jason and Linda had a son, Jason Patric, who played "Michael" in one of the best vampire movies ever, The Lost Boys (1987). There's quite a horror movie lineage going on here.
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| Alphonso DeNoble |
I get the strong impression this movie is saturated with themes.
The Catholicism depicted is that of the old Rite of Mass prior to the changes of the Second Vatican Council which began in 1962 - the movie is set in 1961. Yet, both overzealousness found with some Catholics as well as the breakdown of the American family in the midst of Catholic adherence and devotion are both depicted.
During all the events of the movie, there's a lack of understanding among the characters as far as emotional behavior in children go. We see Alice's parents clueless and completely dependent on child psychologists as they observe their oldest daughter's emotional deterioration, chalking her bad behavior up to precisely that - bad behavior.
I picked up on a subtle anti-religious tone.
Director Alfred Sole was formerly a Catholic. Later professing himself as an "ex-Catholic," he directed an adult film which led to obscenity charges, and finally to a formal excommunication from the Catholic Diocese of Paterson, N.J.
There's a lot of Catholic images via statues and icons throughout the movie as the Spages family breaks apart, innocence is murdered, and Alice's emotional turmoil escalates. These portrayals are mixed with transitioning religious imagery.
Tight spaces are used a lot in the movie as well. Characters are often enclosed in smalls spaces whether they're sitting in the pews and need to scoot over to let someone in, or they're inside a parochial house, or the apartment stairwell. Spaces are small.
And subtle imagery hint towards Alice's mental state, which after viewing, I gather may either have a double meaning opposite of what the audience is led to believe. For example, Alice carries around her sister's porcelain doll which bears two different faces, one on each side of its head.
While the movie's overall depiction of religion versus psychology, Alice, Sweet Alice fails to grasp, or completely misunderstands the focus Catholicism.
The director is too motivated by personal prejudice. Though I'm not an expert on psychology, I believe its focus is on the mind.
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| Brooke Shields in her debut role. |
Catholicism focuses on body and soul together, primarily the soul. But the movie implies the Church only focuses on the soul - so much so it doesn't understand anything else. Maybe its priests don't, that much is true.
It's a serious talking point this movie leaves its audience. And it solidifies my opinion that Hollywood is usually terrible at portraying an accurate picture of religion - any religion.
Regardless, Alice, Sweet Alice is a rich horror movie that makes an effort to appeal to the audience's intellect (albeit with some misleading portrayals based on one person's bias) rather than just showing a hack n' slash movie.
It's a well done horror mystery movie that keeps audiences shocked and thinking.
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