Movie Review: Alice, Sweet Alice

February 4, 2025 by Jon Kitley in Reviews: Movies and tagged Alfred Sole, Alice Sweet Alice, Arrow Video, Black Christmas, Brooke Shields, Deep Sleep, Halloween, Linda Miller, Paula E. Sheppard, Rudolph Willrich, Stephen Lawrence | 2 Comments

(1976)
Directed by Alfred Sole
Starring Paula E. Sheppard, Linda Miller, Rudolph Willrich, Brooke Shields, Mildred Clinton, Niles McMaster, Alphonso DeNoble, Jane Lowry

This film is one that everyone seems to know or remember, especially seeing the VHS tape, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to come up in a lot of conversations, especially when you are discussing the slasher genre. Keep in mind, this film came out two years after Bob Clark’s Black Christmas, but two years before John Carpenter’s Halloween. And yet, when talking about the slasher genre, and this film most certainly is a slasher film, it seems not to come up in those discussions. You have a mysterious, masked killer on the loose, dispatching their victims in a variety of ways, from stabbing, choking, to even throwing them out a window! And the blood flow is pretty excessive in some of these crimes.

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Alfred Sole – Rest in Peace

February 16, 2022 by Jon Kitley in Rest in Peace and tagged Alfred Sole, Alice Sweet Alice, Communion | Leave a comment

This is a trend that I’m not enjoying whatsoever. We heard the news yesterday that Alfred Sole passed away. He is best known for directing the 1976 film Communion aka Alice, Sweet Alice. I had the pleasure to meet him back in 2018 at a film fest in Chicago where they screened Communion, which really still holds up today.

Sole didn’t direct a lot of pictures, mainly because he got fed up with Hollywood. It really is a shame that there are a bunch of talented individuals that are more than willing to create some amazing cinema but just get tired of dealing with the idiots that are calling the shots, not letting them create the art they could. Very sad that Sole wasn’t given the opportunity to continue to show us what he was capable of. We will always have what he has left us to remind us of this loss of talent. Our thoughts go out to his friends and family in this difficult time.

Here is a great quote from Sole that I found on IMDB that sums up his thoughts on Hollywood quite nicely!

“I was not good for Hollywood and Hollywood was not good for me. I didn’t understand the politics. I was just this guy from Jersey who made movies. You go to these meetings with these hotshot executives for hours and nothing gets done! It was just constant frustration. What I really should’ve done is stayed in Paterson and made movies with friends in my hometown, the way I started out, like John Waters or George A. Romero.” – Alfred Sole. Rest in Peace.

Need More Books?

August 7, 2021 by Jon Kitley in Book News and tagged Alan Jones, Alice Sweet Alice, FAB Press, Fantastic Films of the Decades, Frightfest Guide to Grindhouse Movies, Peveril Publishing, The Hammer Karnstein Scrapbook, Troy Howarth, Unholy Communion, Unholy Communion: Alice Sweet Alice from Script to Screen, Wayne Kinsey | Leave a comment

Of course you do! And these are ones to definitely add to your library.

The first one is from our good friend Troy Howarth, published by BearManor Media, this time covering a movie that not only is one that doesn’t get much attention, it is one well worth your attention. The film is Alfred Sole’s 1976 film Alice, Sweet Alice, and the book is entitled Unholy Communion: Alice, Sweet Alice from Script to Screen.

Within the 300+ pages, Howarth goes through the history of this little film that was made outside of the Hollywood system, as well as background information on Sole. It “explores the genesis, production, and reception of one of the key horror films of the 1970s.” We get a brand new in-depth interview with Sole, going through his entire career, as well as reproducing the original shooting script, and plenty of analysis of not only the film, but the genre at the time as well.

Howarth has written several books, such as a 3-book series on giallo films, as well as one on Dario Argento, John Carpenter, Mario Bava, Paul Naschy, and more. Like all of his titles, I can only assume it will be a must read. You can order this directly from BearManor Media or through Amazon. It is available in both hardcover ($39.95) and softcover ($29.95).

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