Alice, Sweet Alice

Humor: 2
Blood: 3
Nudity: 0
Minutes FF’ed thru: Zero
Overall rating: 4

Alice, Sweet Alice, also known as Holy Terror in it’s cut version, and worldwide as Communion. If you haven’t had a chance to catch this, Showtime’s been playing the heck out of it. I watched it earlier this year when it was re-released on DVD, and was quite surprised how good it was.

This is about Alice, who in jealousy of being overshadowed by her little sister (Brooke Shields), kills her in the backroom of the church right before her first communion, then torches the remains. Her destructive behavior persists as she hurts animals and torments her lard-ass landlord. The only one to catch onto her evil is her aunt, who she later tries to kill, and blames it on her dead sister. During the investigation, Alice is deemed wacko through a lie detector test, and then committed to a mental hospital. Who’s guiding this child’s demented acts, The Devil?

Enter, Killer #2. Alice’s father is killed by Mrs. Tredoni, the father of the church's caretaker. Since her daughter was killed at a young age, she believes that children pay for their parent’s sin, and it’s her duty to punish those who have caused Alice grief. While on her way to kill Alice’s mother, the landlord gets in the way, so she stabs him a couple of times and flees. And, in the final scene, she gets upset when the father will not allow her to take communion, and plunges her knife in the side of his neck in front of the whole congregation. This, in turn, appears to lift all suspicion from Alice, and she'll get off scott-free.

This is a great movie from 1976. There's not a lot of blood or gore, but it'll still hold the attention of most horror fans. The girl who plays Alice, Paula Sheppard, nails the part of a demented little girl who’s tormented with jealousy, and who will do anything to get attention. My working title for this is Alice, Oh Deviant Alice. If you can find it for under 15 bucks, buy it, otherwise, catch it on cable, and wait until the price comes down a little.