Alice, Sweet Alice (UHD)
directed by Alfred Sole
starring Brooke Shields, Paula Sheppard, Linda MIller
Arrow Video
Alfred Sole’s Alice, Sweet Alice is a very Generation X movie. The film, which was made in 1976 but was re-issued in 1981 to cash in on the sudden star power of Brooke Shields, immediately became a mainstay in the home video market where Gen X teens and pre-teens devoured the film along with so many other forgotten drive-in films that suddenly had a second life when new technology entered living rooms across the country. The film was important to Gen X kids because of its availability, but it also mirrored our lives in important and disturbing ways. There was a lot of truth on the screen about the real lives of the latchkey kids on Generation X.
When Alice’s younger sister Karen (Brooke Shields) is brutally murdered in the sacristy of her New Jersey church awaiting first communion, suspicion for the crime is clearly aimed at Alice, but never fully articulated. As more murders, all committed by a girl in a yellow rain slicker, stack up, it becomes clear that Alice has been failed by all of the adults in her world. Her parents, extended family, church, law enforcement, and the local community have all either ignored or abused this child in ways that kids growing up in this era would clearly recognize. Childhoods of the ’70s and ’80s are today romanticized with halcyon memories of bike rides with baseball cards in the spokes and drinking from the hose, but the reality for many was empty houses, loneliness, and lives where adult wants were far more important than child needs. This meant a great deal of freedom that often led to dubious pursuits, not the least of which was watching R-rated horror movies in the basement.
The horror of Alice, Sweet Alice is less in the body count than in the psychological torment of young Alice, who has to not only endure the torment of adolescence, but live through it with the spectre of damnation on her head due to the sins of her parents. The fallout of her parents’ divorce is utter isolation and despair for Alice. She is excluded from her faith and whatever comfort that may have held for her. The adults in Alice’s life all seem unable to hold these two thoughts in their head at the same time: that she needs psychological help and that she is not a murderer. Alice’s mother has the impossible task of not only mourning the horrific murder of one daughter, but also dealing with the very real possibility that her other child is a murderer. Not exactly lightweight stuff, but director Alfred Sole, to his credit, keeps things moving at a quick clip so the headier subtext never gets in the way of a good time, while allowing those elements to shine, making the film worthwhile for multiple viewings.
The home video presentation of Alice, Sweet Alice has come a long way since the VHS/Betamax wars. Arrow Video has now upgraded the film to 4K UHD. The film doesn’t pop off the screen the way some films do on UHD, but the soft palette of John Friberg and Chuck Hall does take on a lovely glow in the format. The extras from the earlier Arrow Blu-ray have been ported over and joined by a brand new audio commentary by the always terrific Richard Harland Smith.
