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Blu-ray Review: Alice, Sweet Alice

8/6/2019

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Alfred Sole's 1977 "American giallo", Alice, Sweet Alice, is now available on Blu-ray from Arrow Films. 

When Alice's perfect little sister is brutally murdered on the day of her first communion, most everyone begins to suspect Alice of the grisly crime. It's easy to see why at first. Alice isn't the nicest little girl. She taunts and sasses off to just about anyone who is unfortunate enough to cross her path. She has a macabre collection of little trinkets and masks - one of which is a translucent baby-face mask, one that figures prominently in the film, and it is one of the creepiest damn things ever captured on celluloid. 

As the film carries on, people are brutally slaughtered in a variety of ways, each one more gruesome than the last. And the killer, wearing a yellow raincoat and the aforementioned baby-face mask, has no plans of stopping any time soon. As far as the identity of the killer, the revelation is both shocking and playfully ambiguous. 

Sole apparently loved Nic Roeg's Don't Look Now. It's quite obvious throughout the course of the film that this was one of his main sources of inspiration. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you. Alice, Sweet Alice is one of the most unique offerings of seventies horror, and it definitely deserves to be seen. It was released throughout the years with several different titles, including Holy Terror and Communion - titles with not-so-subtle nods to religion, as this is a film with a major chip on its shoulder in regards to the church, particularly the guilt that the church forces on its parishioners to live a "holy" life. Alfred Sole takes a swipe at all of this and then some. In that way, it seems like a very personal film and a very powerful one at that. I quite enjoyed Alice, Sweet Alice, save for a moment of disturbing animal cruelty involving a kitten that was clearly unsimulated. Like many films, it's not without its weaknesses, and there are quite a few. But we're only gonna focus on the good stuff here, and this Blu-ray is definitely worth a purchase for the serious horror fan! 

Arrow's Blu-ray features a brand new 2K restoration, interviews with the cast and crew, two audio commentaries, alternate opening titles, an alternate cut of the film (Holy Terror), deleted scenes, trailers and TV spots, an interview with director Dante Tomaselli, a tour of the filming locations, the original screenplay, and an image gallery. 
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    My name is Adam Renkovish. I am a certified Halloween addict. 

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