Alice, Sweet Alice (1977)

Sure, there’s a masked killer running around wielding a butcher knife, but please stop with the rolling of the eyes. This one was quite the interesting little film, miles away from the typical slasher flick that you might have been expecting. Starts out with an obvious case of sibling rivalry between sisters as the older sibling, Alice, is shown being highly jealous of her adorable little sister Karen (Brooke Shields) who is preparing for her first communion at Church. Karen is the sweet little angel, while Alice has some quirky little habits like collecting bugs, scaring people with weird masks, and if I may say so, is actually quite the little bitch. No surprise mommy favors Karen huh? On the day of communion, a killer wearing the same mask favored by Alice in her pranks mysteriously murders Karen in the church. Soon afterward, all eyes except for mom and dad’s are looking to oddball Alice as the murderer. So, is Alice quite the little “psycho bitch” or is there someone else responsible? Alice, Sweet Alice plays like an American version of an Italian “giallo” flick. There’s the whole “who’s the killer” angle, the masked killer wearing a raincoat which is featured in many an Argento film, and it just had that whole euro-horror vibe to it. For all you pissed at the Church Catholics out there, this one is loaded with tons of Catholic symbolism, most of which probably went right over my noggin since all I know about Catholicism I learned from The Exorcist. The murders in the film are fairly vicious and bloody, watch out for that “butcher knife through the foot” scene, and the killer’s get up of the yellow rain slicker and cheapie dime store mask was just plain creepy. The death of young Karen is one of the few onscreen child murders I have seen, and while it is not done distastefully, it is rather disturbing to watch. At times the film got a little muddled and relied maybe a little to much in the religious symbolism department, but there was plenty of material here to make the old brain work, and that I liked. Recommended.