Communion, made exactly 50 years ago by Alfred Sole, may have been excluded because it is – understandably – perceived to be an anti-Catholic film, made by a renegade from the Church and making its narrative fulcrum the murder of a young girl at her First Communion.

The film has had a chequered life, both commercially and critically. It was retitled Alice, Sweet Alice shortly after being premiered and re-released in 1981 as Holy Terror, in an attempt to capitalise on Brooke Shields’ first screen appearance as the strangled child. Sole’s only previous film had been an “adult” vehicle, for which he was charged with obscenity and excommunicated.
So far, so not very family-orientated. Except that the dysfunction and alienation of the family is one of Sole’s key themes, albeit analysed in the bleakest of terms and tropes.

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