BY TODD GARBARINI
Alfred
Sole is a production designer who has carved out a nice career for himself in
Hollywood, most notably on the television shows Veronica Mars (2004-7), Castle
(2009-16), and the reboot of MacGyver
(2017-18). Long before he chose that line of work however, he dabbled in the
world of film directing. His first film, the 1972 hardcore sex “comedy†Deep Sleep, must be seen to be believed
because despite a few flourishes of cinematic style and several humorous
sequences involving dialogue, it’s just a hardcore sex romp featuring folks no
one in their right mind would want to see naked let alone copulating. There is
absolutely nothing in this film to suggest that he would next direct one of the
greatest and most thematically disturbing thrillers of our time, 1976’s Communion, not to be confused with the
Christopher Walken/alien-probe-up-the-old-dirt-road 1989 outing based on Whitley
Strieber’s 1987 “non-fiction†book of the same name. His subsequent films,
1980’s Tanya’s Island with the late
and impossibly gorgeous Denise Matthews (credited as “D.D. Wintersâ€) and 1982’s
star-studded comedy Pandemonium both
fared poorly at the box office, hence his career change. Thankfully Communion, with its high cinematic style
and deceptively low production budget, refused to die.
In
her screen debut, Brooke Shields plays Karen Spages (rhymes with “pagesâ€), the
younger sister of Alice Spages, the latter brilliantly portrayed by New
Jersey-born actress Paula Sheppard. Karen is favored by everyone around her and
can do no wrong, mostly because Alice is a, forgive the pun, holy terror. Alice
teases Karen, locks her in a building to scare her, and mistreats her communion
veil. Why the horseplay? Alice was conceived out of wedlock and is not entitled
to receive the Holy Eucharist. As if this is her fault.
On
the day of her first communion Karen is brutally murdered right in the church
and all suspicion points to her sister after she finds the discarded veil and
wears it to the altar. This sets in motion some truly well-acted scenes wherein
the identity of the killer is constantly in question. Everyone suspects Alice,
even her neighbor Mr. Alphonse (Alphonse DeNoble), an obese monstrosity you
must see to believe. Karen and Alice’s mother Catherine (Linda Miller) is
grief-stricken and meets her ex-husband Dom (Niles McMaster) at the funeral. Afterwards,
there are suspicions about Alice’s whereabouts during Karen’s murder and Alice
submits to a polygraph which she mischievously pushes on to the floor. Her Aunt
Annie (Jane Lowry) battles with her sister and the latter accuses her of hating
Alice because of her sinful status. Annie refutes this until she herself is
attacked in a shockingly bloody sequence and fully believes that Alice is the
killer.
Alice takes place circa 1961 as evinced by the production design,
the old-style cars, the calendar on the wall, and the prevalence of a poster of
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) that
can be seen if one really looks for it. Originally reviled amid concerns that
it’s an attack against the Catholic Church (how can it not be?), the film was
met with lukewarm box office. Director Sole was rumored to have stated that the
church was simply the milieu he wanted to set the story against, but the
commentary infers otherwise. It’s one of the most Catholic-themed films I’ve
ever seen, even more so than William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973). It has a look, a feel, and an atmosphere all
its own. This film is quite simply one of the best low-budget American horror
films ever made. It boasts a superbly eerie score by Stephen Lawrence who scored
a handful of other films. Yours Truly has been wishing for a soundtrack album
of this music for years, however one has yet to surface. Great editing,
wonderful set design, and excellent music all come together to make Alice an enjoyable shocker that can
easily be viewed more than several times.
This
film has had a strange history. Filmed in Mr. Sole’s hometown of Paterson, NJ
in the summer of 1975, Alice
premiered in Paterson (Lou Costello’s old stomping grounds) under its original
title Communion on Saturday, November
13, 1976 at the Fabian Theater (now the Fabian Building). The event was met
with much fanfare, however a subsequent theatrical release failed to stir much
interest. Communion was dropped by
the original distributor, picked up by another, retitled Alice, Sweet Alice, re-cut and
redistributed in 1981 as Holy Terror
and played up Ms. Shields’s participation in response to the success of the
previous year’s The Blue Lagoon. It
then made its way to cable television and local independent stations where the
bulk of us caught up with it. Later on it was relegated to VHS collecting dust
in discount bins beginning in 1985 with Goodtimes Home Video, seemingly forever
to be lost within the public domain due to a legal snafu. I bought it for ten
dollars, which was unheard of in an era when the MSRP on a VHS tape was roughly
eighty dollars. In 1998, the film received a laserdisc release from the Roan
Group which sported a highly entertaining audio commentary from director Sole
and the film’s editor, Edward
Salier. The film was given two DVD releases later on, which ported over the
commentary. Even without the benefit of Sole's discussion, one can
easily see the influence that Nicolas Roeg's astonishing Don’t Look Now (1973) has on this
film.
Finally,
after many years of yearning, the movie has been restored by 88 Films in a beautiful new 2K
transfer generated from one of the film’s few remaining 35mm prints and
practically restores it to how it looked over forty years ago. The Blu-ray
contains the following extras:
The audio commentary from the laserdisc
and DVDs
The original theatrical trailer
TV spot
Poster and home video artwork
Restoration comparison – click here
to see it on Youtube.com
Reversible sleeve with alternate Holy
Terror poster art
Click
here to purchase from 88 Films in the UK
(the Blu-ray is region-free).