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Full plot [contains spoilers]:
In 1961, in Paterson, New Jersey, divorced mother Catherine Spages visits Father Tom with her two daughters, nine-year-old Karen and twelve-year-old Alice, who attend St. Michael’s Parish Girls’ School. Karen is preparing for her First Communion, and Father Tom gives her his mother’s crucifix as a gift. A jealous Alice puts on a Halloween mask, frightening Father Tom’s housekeeper, Mrs. Tredoni. Alice steals Karen’s porcelain doll, scares her, and threatens her if she tells anyone.
On the day of her First Communion, Karen is strangled to death with her candle in the church transept by a person wearing a Halloween mask and a yellow raincoat; her crucifix is ripped from her neck and her body is set on fire. A nun makes the horrific discovery, disrupting the communion ceremony.
After Karen’s funeral, Catherine’s ex-husband Dominick begins to investigate her murder independently while Detective Spina handles the case formally. Catherine’s sister Annie moves in to help her, though Alice and Annie despise each other. Catherine sends Alice to deliver a rent check to their landlord, the morbidly obese Mr. Alphonso, and he attempts to molest her. Annie is attacked by a masked figure. At the hospital, she claims that Alice tried to kill her. Alice is detained and takes a lie detector test, insisting Karen is the one that attacked Annie, but Alice is still sent to a psychiatric institution for evaluation.
Dominick receives a hysterical phone call from someone claiming to be Annie’s daughter Angela, saying that she has Karen’s crucifix. Dominick agrees to meet her at an abandoned building. There, the figure stabs him before binding him with rope. Dominick sees that the killer is in fact Mrs. Tredoni, who chastises Dominick and Catherine as sinners because of their premarital sex and divorce. After Dominick bites Karen’s crucifix off Mrs. Tredoni’s neck, she pushes him out a window to his death.
Catherine goes to visit Father Tom. He is not home but Mrs. Tredoni invites her in. She explains that when her own daughter died on the day of her First Communion, she realized that children are punished for their parent’s sins. In her grief and madness, she devotes herself to the church. Father Tom arrives and tells Catherine that Dom has died. During Dominick’s autopsy, the pathologist finds Karen’s crucifix in his mouth, and Alice is eliminated as a suspect. Father Tom and Catherine go get Alice from the institution.
Mrs. Tredoni sneaks into Catherine’s apartment building. Mr. Alphonso wakes up screaming, as Alice had mischievously placed a jar of cockroaches on him while he slept. Mr. Alphonso encounters Mrs. Tredoni in the staircase and mistakes her for Alice. When he shoves her against a wall, grabs her as she tries to escape the stairs and takes her mask off, she stabs him to death and flees. Detective Spina witnesses her running out maskless through the back door.
Mrs. Tredoni rushes to the church, where the police are stationed. Spina arrives too late to save Mr. Alphonso. During Mass, Father Tom denies Mrs. Tredoni communion. She stabs the priest in the throat as the police rush in. While Father Tom bleeds to death, Alice walks out of the church with Mrs. Tredoni’s shopping bag, and places the bloodstained butcher knife into it, implying that she will resume Mrs. Tredoni’s killing spree someday.
Film facts:
For the film’s special effects, which include multiple murder sequences by bludgeoning and stabbing, Sole hired friend William Lustig, who would later direct Maniac (1980) and Maniac Cop.
Cast and characters:
Linda Miller … Catherine Spages
Mildred Clinton … Mrs Tredoni
Paula E. Sheppard … Alice Spages
Niles McMaster … Dominick ‘Dom’ Spages
Jane Lowry … Aunt Annie De Lorenze
Rudolph Willrich … Father Tom
Michael Hardstark … Detective Spina
Alphonso DeNoble … Alphonso
Gary Allen … Jim DeLorenze
Brooke Shields … Karen Spages
Louisa Horton … Doctor Whitman
Tom Signorelli … Detective Brennan
Antonino Rocca … Funeral Director
Lillian Roth … Pathologist
Kathy Rich … Angela De Lorenze
Patrick Gorman … Father Pat
Country of origin:
United States
Filming locations:
Paterson, New Jersey
Budget:
$340,000 (estimated)
Technical specs:
1 hour 47 minutes
Mono
Aspect ratio: 1.85: 1
