I was so excited to watch this because it seemed like a really underrated great horror movie that I would really like. And......I was right! This movie definitely reminds me of Don't Look Now and has bright red blood AND some really great camera angles and shots. The only problem is the rough handling of a kitten but I guess I'll let it slide.
Turns out-Alice isn't so sweet. She's one of those really mean little girls that push people into little rooms, and put peoples coats in the toliet and keep jars with cockroaches in them. I'd say she's only a small step away from turning into a Samara. Her sister Brook Shields gets all the attention. She is a favorite of the priest father Tom, and obviously is the favorite child of her mother. Alice likes to wear creepy flesh colored masks which- in case you aren't aware of it are much more creepy then regular masks. Trust me.
See?
So at Brooke Shields' first communion, she gets killed, stuffed into a bench thing and lit on fire. People suspect Alice because she is conviently missing at the time of the murder and arrives right after it-holding her sisters veil. Her mother isn't having it. And one day after a tiff with her aunt, Alice goes downstairs, heckles the fat man who like cats, and plays in the basement. The aunt soon leaves and on her way down the stairs gets stabbed in the legs by a person in a yellow raincoat and flesh colored mask. Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Alice is suspected and held at a mental institution type place. But we soon find the murders continue with the same person in the yellow raincoat and flesh colored mask....! How can this be?! As we learn more and more about the killer and their motives the movie only becomes more complex and I still have several questions and thoughts that won't go away.
The killer's motive first of all does make sense to me. Mostly. But I still think Alice stabbed the aunt. I think this because of two things; first off, the killer's motive doesn't match up with why she would kill the aunt, and secondly the stabber didn't kill the aunt. The stabs seemed more to hurt rather than to kill. This is why I think Alice had to have been a part of this particular incidient. Anyone else agree?
The rest makes sense- sins and killing people who have sinned. The crazy lady and John Doe from Se7en should really get together sometime.
The things I love most about this movie is how creepy Alice is. And how- very much like every character Vincent Price has ever played- we have a hard time truly trusting her. There's that sweet angelic music every now and then, and you're all like, why does she own so many creepy flesh colored masks then she's all like strangling kittens and shit. It's nuts.
Also I love the blood. The blood flows really nicely in this in that it has more of a purpose than just a slasher movie. The blood is almost artfully placed and flowed and it really makes some of these shots really beautiful. The best one has to be the ending murder. Such a surprise- and then she holds him tight and the blood pours out in these little rivers over the top of the raincoat, I was really just blown away. And also the scene where the fatty gets stabbed and we see his bloody hand in the now bloody fish bowl.
Gah I just really liked this movie. It was suspenseful, surprising and really kept you on edge. You don't know what to think about Alice and what her deal is- and every time the flesh colored mask pops up it scares you just as much as the first time you saw it. It's really a powerful object. So definitely watch this if you haven't- a real diamond in the rough if you will.
Buy Alice Sweet Alice at Horror Movie Empire
8 comments:
kick-ass, I wrote about this films NJ links in a post I'll be publishing during The Halloween Countdown...are you in on that?
hmmmm no I dont think I am. Now that I think of it I still need an amazing Halloween costume and time is running out...ballz.
Alice Sweet Alice is disturbing. The overweight man who keeps cats is stabbed which I found disturbing. This movie resembles The Bad Seed and Kiss of the Tarantula. Alice is evil.
Loved this film! My little sister and I used to watch this film every day after school-explains a lot ;)
It really is a film that gets under your skin!
Alice was not the killer!
She did not kill her sister and she did not stab her aunt....If you paid attention you would know this.
The idea is that maybe she did some of it since it was ambiguous and the end made Alice seem guilty of something
Alice killed the aunt. Why did she stash the knife at the end? The old lady had no reason to attack the aunt.
Did Alice kill some of the people? Considering the horrible things she did and said in this movie, she seems capable of violence and murder. She's a bully and a sociopath. She's cruel and unlikeable. How could a girl with such a cute face be capable of such horrible behavior? Cute in appearance, but very uncut in personality. Her mean personality does not match her appearance.
Alice treated her sister horribly, and she was especially cruel with the obese man who keeps cats. Ok, the man was a bit gross, but she went out of her way to be mean to him. She calls him fatty which is insensitive. The obese actor is played by Alphonso DeNoble, who died young at age 31 in 1978. In this movie, the script has him play a disgusting slob and child molester. In real life, he was a sweet guy.Even in this movie he comes across more as a tragic case than a bad guy. He didn't deserve to die.
A very disturbing scene is when Alphonso tries to molest Alice and she defends herself by grabbing one of his kittens and throwing it. Yes she has a right to defend herself, but this is just a movie and she wasn't in any real danger. But the cruelty to animals scene in this movie is real. She grabs the kitten by the neck, strangling it, and then throws it. That was a real live animal being injured, and not a fake. Why take out your anger on an innocent animal? Why would the film makers film such cruelty? This sets a very bad example for actress Paula Sheppard who plays Alice. She is being taught that animal suffering and death is ok. Of course it's not ok. It's cruel and immoral, but sadly, cruelty to animals in older movies was frequent in older movies. Movies in the 1970s are notorious for showing cruelty to animals, such as Apocalypse Now, with the slaughter of a water buffalo by machetes at the end of the movie.
The real killer of the movie is an older woman who is supposed to be very religious. It's too bad she can't see that murder and killing are among the most serious sins and she is a worse sinner than the people she is killing. She wears a mask similar to the one Alice wears, and tries to frame Alice as the killer. Alice might not be the real killer, but she is still an awful person. There's scarcely a single likeable person in this movie.
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