Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)

A formative horror movie from my youth that I revisited after not having seen it since the days of VHS. I was only five during its theatrical run, so I didn’t see it in the theater, but I did see it (probably way too young) as a rental from the local video store in the early 80s.

Alice, Sweet Alice (aka Communion) is a psychological horror with religious imagery. It sits in that space of being somewhat of a proto-slasher. It comes after The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Black Christmas (both released in ’74), but before such films as Halloween (1978), The Toolbox Murders (1978), and the one that (arguably) solidified many of the tropes the genre became know for in the years that followed, Friday the 13th (1980). Yet with its central mystery around who the killer is and its Hitchcockian style, it feels closer to being an American giallo. Perhaps one of the reasons it has endured is that it doesn’t fit neatly into one specific subgenre.

The cinematography is great, lending to the tension through its frequent use of claustrophobically tight spaces. The score adds to the spook factor as well. It does not have an extremely high body count compared to what would become typical much later in the slasher genre, but there are several kills, and each one is brutal and impactful to the story.

Those simple masks are more effective than one might first assume in keeping the creep level up too.

Paula E. Sheppard, who plays Alice, also played in another cult classic a few years later, as Adrian in Liquid Sky (1982). She didn’t do anything after that. Apparently retired from acting. I bet she could have had a long career if that was something she wanted to do.

Also notable for being the screen debut for Brooke Shields.

Rewatching after many years, and seeing a whole lot of horror in the interim, I came away feeling this film has stood the test of time. All in all it is still an exciting creepy horror thriller.