Friday, September 5, 2008

Alice Sweet Alice

     This is a very dramatic movie, and unlike most cult films, the acting is really good, it looks like it had a decent budget, and it has a great story.  This was billed as Brooke Shield's first movie (I think maybe age 8 or 9), but I'm almost sure that she starred in a film called Pretty Baby just prior to this, but because she appears naked in Pretty Baby, it was considered highly controversial and was labeled as child porn and quickly swept under the rug and this movie was instead chosen to be her first official movie role.  Anyway, this was also Paula Sheppard's first (and only other) film. Paula's other movie "Liquid Sky" can also be found here on Cultarama, so by all means give it a look-see. Paula plays the title role of Alice in this film, and in both movies, she plays such an incredible bitch, but ironically from what information I've managed to obtain about her, everyone says that she's actually a very sweet and generous woman, who after making only two films, retired from show business to become a mother. Oh well, not to be rude but if she had chosen to continue acting instead of motherhood, I'm sure that she would have given us many more wonderful performances. 

      Brooke Shields's character of Karen, younger sister to the demented and violent older sister Alice (Paula) is the main center of the story even though she gets killed off relatively early in the movie. Karen is a sweetheart, but Alice could easily pass for a sociopathic serial killer. She's a prankster (and an evil one too), and she detests everyone, most especially her sister Karen. 

      The movie begins with Alice stealing her sister's favorite doll with the promise of smashing it. Their mom Catherine is convinced that Alice was just up to her usual tomfoolery and soothes Karen by letting her try on her new dress to be worn at her upcoming Communion. The day before Communion, their Priest Father Tom gives Karen a very special present (a beautiful gold cross necklace that belonged to his grandmother). Since Alice didn't get shit, and already has many hostilities towards her sister, this just adds to her hatred of Karen. Mrs. Tredoni (Father Tom's housekeeper/cook/answering service/maid/friend of the family, etc) also seems a little miffed about Father Tom giving Karen such a wonderful gift. 

      Midway through this story, we are introduced to many odd and somewhat annoying characters, such as Mr. Alfonso, the 600 lb apartment landlord with piss stains on his pants who eats cat food right along with his 328 feline friends in an apartment the size of a broom closet. Another is Aunt Annie, Catherine's older sister who adores Karen and despises Alice.

      At the actual Communion, Karen goes missing. We see her being attacked by someone who looks like Alice because it's a small-built individual (probably a woman), wearing the same kind of raincoat that Alice always wears, and donning a specific mask that we know Alice has stashed in her secret trunk in the basement. One of those creepy-ass masks that were mostly clear but had exaggerated makeup on them (typical nightmare fuel). Karen is subdued and thrown into a large wooden box and set aflame. A nun finds her charred body after smelling the smoke. She screams and everyone panics. Catherine is very bluntly told by her bitch sister Annie that Karen is dead. Pandemonium erupts, and everyone starts screaming and crying... meanwhile we see Alice slipping Karen's veil under her raincoat to conceal it. Alice is the perfect suspect in the murder because not only did she like to dress just like the killer was dressed, but she also has very sociopathic tendencies, and is hateful and jealous towards her younger sister for many reasons. 

      The estranged father of Karen and Alice arrives in town for his daughter's funeral, to comfort his ex-wife and to get to the bottom of who killed his daughter. All the clues acquired point directly at Alice. As she's leaving the apartment, Aunt Annie (who is in a constant battle of wills with Alice) is violently attacked.  Again, "someone" dressed in the raincoat and mask that Alice often wears, assaults Annie in the stairwell and stabs her. Once Annie is taken to the hospital, she is convinced that Alice is the person who stabbed her. Alice is then taken to a psych ward and questioned about the stabbing of her aunt. She is given a polygraph test which establishes that she knows who stabbed her aunt, but she tells the truth when she says that it was her dead sister Karen. So either Alice is nuts or she really saw Karen (or someone who looks like Karen, possibly wearing the same yellow raincoat) stab her aunt. Alice's parents think maybe it could have been Angela (Annie's daughter/Karen and Alice's cousin) who also has a yellow raincoat and just happened to be missing when Karen was killed. One problem, Angela is quite a plump young lady and doesn't resemble Karen or Alice in any way. Angela then calls Alice's father (her uncle) and says that she has run away, has Karen's gold cross (which was given to Karen shortly before she died and was then taken by the killer), and asks her uncle if he could possibly meet her at some abandoned building. He follows Angela into the building where she stabs him, he chases after her and they struggle. During the struggle, the mask slips off revealing that it's actually Mrs. Tredoni and not Angela. The cross is hanging around her neck (which identifies her as Karen's killer). The father manages to bite the dangling cross from her neck before she pushes him off a ledge, landing on a pile of concrete, killing him. 

      Mrs. Tredoni hates Catherine and her family. She killed Karen because she was jealous that Father Tom gave Karen his grandmother's gold cross. She also attempted to kill Catherine but misidentified her and stabbed Annie instead. Also being very religious (fuel for the best crimes imaginable), she thinks Catherine is a total whore because she is not only divorced but that she gave birth to Alice out of wedlock. Catherine goes to Father Tom's house, but only Mrs. Tredoni is home. She starts telling Catherine about how she herself had a little girl at one time, who also died during her first Communion. She feels that her little girl was killed in order to pay for the sins of her parents. Afterward, she came to care for Father Tom (she points a knife at Catherine) not YOU! 

      During the autopsy of Alice's father, they find the cross lodged in his throat. The cops make the connection that it's the same cross that was stolen from Karen and figure out that Mrs.Tredoni is the actual killer, not Alice. Mrs.Tredoni goes to the church (where police are waiting to apprehend her) and gets in line for Communion. Since Father Tom knows what she's done, he won't give it to her. She then points to Catherine and screams out "But you gave it to that whore!!". At this time she then stabs Father Tom in the neck. As she holds his lifeless body, the cops rush in. 

      The last scene is the creepiest... as the cops are rushing around, we see Alice pick up Mrs. Tredoni's shopping bag that contains the knife used as the main murder weapon. She looks at it, slowly hides it back in the bag, and gives the camera a really evil look. The look of an accused and innocent young girl who now has the capacity and desire to kill.

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