ALICE, SWEET ALICE

Alice, Sweet Alice Movie Review

Young Karen Spages (Brooke Shields) is murdered in a Catholic church, and all fingers point to her older sister, Alice (Paula E. Sheppard), as the killer. Alice proclaims her innocence, but as events unfold, this comes into serious doubt.

She even ends up behind bars

That is the general story of this 1976 horror/crime thriller that has picked up quite a cult following over the years. This is one of those movies that reminds me of being in video stores back in the day, as I always thought the cover looked interesting, but for whatever reason, I never rented it. More than anything else, the film is known for being Shields' movie debut, but if you seek it out for that reason alone, be warned--despite having her name appear on many covers and advertisements for the movie in the years that followed, Shields is not in it very long. Sheppard, on the other hand, is wonderfully creepy as the title character--I was surprised to learn she turned 19 during shooting (she plays a 12-year-old) and that, to date, she has only been in one other movie. The rest of the performances vary from decent (Rudolph Willrich as Father Tom) to atrocious (Alphonso DeNoble as Alphonso), with everybody else falling somewhere between. The church settings and symbolism used add to the uneasy feeling of the film, and some have claimed the movie is nothing more than an assault against the Catholic church--I will let you make your own judgement on this, but if it is, would that be any different than any of the other hundreds of movies that do the same thing? The death scenes are brutal, and often look rather realistic. The movie does suffer from a very slow pace, and at 107 minutes, runs longer than it should have. The directing is different, but not necessarily in a good way (way too many close-up shots of actors mugging it up for my taste). The reveal in the third act will take all the air out of whatever was left by the time you get to it--at that point, I was just ready for the movie to be over. That said, the closing scene is one for the ages. I don't know if it was a case of the movie being over-hyped and me expecting too much out of it, or if it really is as bland as it seemed, but to me, there's nothing spectacular about Alice, Sweet Alice.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 5

Alice, Sweet Alice Movie Trailer