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“God took her from me on the day of her first communion, don’t you see? He waited until then to teach me that children pay for the sins of their parents.”

Is there anything quite so devastating as the concept of original sin? The idea that we’re damned at conception before we’ve had a chance to take our first breath? What will it take to find salvation and how much will we have to pay for the actions of those who came before us? It’s a particularly painful topic for women. With Eve’s first bite of the apple weighing heavily against us and men holding all the levers of power, the path to righteousness can feel like a minefield. Some women will kill to escape these oppressive gender-based norms while others double down and kill to make sure they stay in place. The Lady Killers...

This unique proto-slasher is not a rip-off of The Exorcist and for my taste is more meaningful, despite associating innocent children with horrible killings and religious repression. Director Alfred Sole uses these edgy elements to whip up an involving mystery, and a committed cast lifts it high above the exploitation gutter. Great extras, especially a commentary by Richard Harland Smith.

Alice, Sweet Alice

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1976 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 98 min. / Communion / Street Date August 6, 2019 / 39.95

Starring: Linda Miller, Paula Sheppard, Mildred Clinton, Niles McMaster, Tom Signorelli, Brooke Shields, Miss Lillian Roth.

Film Editor: Edward Salier

Original Music: Stephen Lawrence

Written by Rosemary Ritvo, Alfred Sole

Produced by Richard K. Rosenberg

Directed by Alfred Sole

Back in the 1970s horror films didn’t always get a fair critical reception, so it was difficult to know which ones were the winners. Alice, Sweet Alice is an accomplished post- Exorcist shocker about mayhem in a dysfunctional Catholic family.

Stars: Linda Miller, Mildred Clinton, Paula Sheppard, Niles McMaster, Jane Lowry, Rudolph Willrich, Michael Hardstark, Alphonso DeNoble, Gary Allen, Brooke Shields | Written by Alfred Sole, Rosemary Ritvo | Directed by Alfred Sole

When ten-year-old Karen is killed in church on the occasion of her first communion, her seemingly innocent older sister Alice (Paula Sheppard) becomes the prime suspect. Matters become complicated as more of Alice s family members are attacked, along with residents of her apartment building. Can a twelve-year-old girl be capable of such mayhem, or is someone else with a vicious plan destroying her family?

1970s “killer kid” proto-slasherAlice Sweet Alice comes from from director Alfred Sole – who would later go on to spoof the genre a mere three years later with Pandemonium – and is one of those horror films that has become more notorious for its cast than it’s plot. In this case it for a very...

The Catholic Church (and religion in general) always seems to have a hard go of it in horror films. Whether seen as the last respite for the desperate (The Exorcist), or co-conspirators of evil (The Omen), the church has proven to be a wellspring of guilt and mistrust, useful tools for building a great horror tale. Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) is a sinister example of good old Catholic retribution, and the finest American version of a giallo to boot.

The film premiered in November of ’76 at the Chicago International Film Festival under its original title Communion. Columbia Pictures was originally supposed to distribute the film, but legal issues arose and they dropped it. Allied Artists stepped in but demanded a name change so people would not think of it as a religious film (which it is – but probably not the kind people would be expecting), came up with Alice, Sweet Alice...

Stars: Linda Miller, Mildred Clinton, Paula Sheppard, Niles McMaster, Jane Lowry, Rudolph Willrich, Michael Hardstark, Alphonso DeNoble, Gary Allen, Brooke Shields | Written by Alfred Sole, Rosemary Ritvo | Directed by Alfred Sole

88 Films expand their DVD repertoire with their first non-Full Moon flick Alice Sweet Alice (aka Communion), the 1970s “killer kid” proto-slasher from director Alfred Sole – who would later go on to spoof the genre a mere three years later with Pandemonium.

When ten-year-old Karen (Brooke Shields, in her first screen appearance) is killed in church on the occasion of her first communion, her seemingly innocent older sister Alice (Paula Sheppard) becomes the prime suspect. Matters become complicated as more of Alice s family members are attacked, along with residents of her apartment building. Can a twelve-year-old girl be capable of such mayhem, or is someone else with a vicious plan destroying her family?

Alice Sweet Alice is...

The fact that film history barely acknowledges co-writer/director Alfred Sole's sophisticated, unbelievably disturbing 1976 dark thriller/murder mystery Alice, Sweet Alice as the major work of psychological horror it is, is patently ridiculous and borderline offensive.

The grim, grisly and offbeat movie (originally released under the title Communion then re-issued as Holy Terror before getting stuck with the moniker it now bears) is an eerie, emotionally draining and thoroughly fascinating picture that needs far more love ladled on it than the lowly level it now seems to command.

Sole's prickly, melodramatic fractured masterpiece tells the tale of New Jersey divorcee Catherine Spages (Linda Miller) and her two daughters, sweet little Karen (played by a pre-Pretty Baby Brooke Shields in her movie debut) and the slightly older (and more than slightly disturbed) Alice (Paula Sheppard, who would grow up to star in the counterculture punk rock / Sci-Fi classic Liquid Sky...