Alice, Sweet Alice. Alice is a troubled and difficult 12 year old girl, jealous of her prettier younger sister and resentful of her judgmental, overbearing aunt. So when her sister is murdered and her aunt attacked by a masked figure wielding a knife, Alice soon becomes prime suspect. But is it really Alice's face behind the killer's mask? This mid 70s horror thriller, clearly influenced by the Italian "giallo" horror genre, was actually a pretty effective mystery chiller. You know all bets are off and a film means business when an innocent little girl (Brooke Shields in her film debut) is the first to get offed, and this unpredictability extends through the rest of the film. The killer reveal, for instance, comes not in the climax but about 25 minutes earlier, allowing for the suspense of wondering when and how they'll get caught, and the tension of an innocent character being in their presence and oblivious to the danger they're in. This was a pretty solid flick, actually, I rather enjoyed it.
