Alyce

Red Queen

Alyce
aka Alyce Kills
USA Directed by Jay Lee
Lionsgate 2011 DVD Region 2

Warning: Full story spoilers reside within.

I can’t remember if I picked Alyce up at FrightFest or ordered it for a very low price online but I must have read something good about it somewhere. I have to admit, I bought this one thinking it would be a horror movie but it’s actually not, it’s more of an adult themed drama. I mean, it nearly pushes over into the serial killer genre of thriller but, since a lot of the murders committed by the title character are spur of the moment decisions, I think it kinda side steps that category too, to be honest. In the same way, I guess, that Scorcese’s masterpiece Taxi Driver is not a serial killer movie. Maybe we can agree to label this one up as a psycho-drama?

Either way, the film is not quite what I expected and, although I thought it had a problem or two, it’s actually a pretty good movie. The basic story is as follows (don’t read the next two paragraphs if you’re worried about spoilers)...

Alyce’s and her best friend Carroll go for a night out but, as it’s beginning, Carroll finds out her boyfriend has been cheating on her and the two go off to get roaring drunk. They return to Alyce’s apartment and almost ‘get it on’, as they say but Alyce is disappointed that Carroll isn’t really serious about starting up a lesbian relationship with her at this point. Instead, they go to see Carroll’s drug dealer and get wasted on ‘E’ and more booze and, when they are completely high on the stuff, they decide to get even higher by climbing to the roof of Alyce’s apartment block. Things go south very quickly then, at high speed, as Alyce inadvertently pushes Carroll from the roof of the building, is traumatised and returns to her apartment. The next morning she gives the police an alibi but then finds out that Carroll isn’t dead, just so smashed up with her shattered jaw and bitten off tongue that she can’t even talk (although it’s obvious she’s more than a little angry with Alyce).

So, to help get over things (and contribute to her losing her job in the process), she starts trading sexual favours for drugs from Carroll’s drug dealer and, after a while, the psycho switch in Alyce’s distressed head gets flipped. She returns to the hospital to smother Carroll and, after a while, kill’s Carroll’s ex when he comes to her apartment... then his new girlfriend when she does the same and then, finally, she goes all ‘Travis Bickle’ on the drug dealer and his entourage. That’s the basic story right there.

The film is very good for most of the time and, in part, that’s down to the excellent performances of lead actress Jade Dornfeld in the title role and Amara Zaragoza as Carroll. The first 20 mins of the film is literally just the two of them ‘girly bonding’ and, well, it doesn’t get boring because it just seems so natural. I can’t help but think some of this dialogue must have come from improvised rehearsals because the authenticity of the lines and the way the actresses deliver them is fantastic.

The direction and cinematography are superb too. Considering they pull no punches on the grittiness, goriness and language of various situations... such as Alyce trying to dispose of the boyfriends body by cutting it up and bashing it about in her flat using knives, hammers, baseball bat, microwave, liquidiser and hacksaw etc (and then tries to do the same for everyone else, with a certain level of bloody detail which is outstanding)... the film looks really beautifully lit and framed. I admit to being a little less shocked and more jaded than the director might have liked for his prospective audience but I did appreciate the details of her cutting the flesh off the hand until there’s nothing left but the skeletal remains etc. They did that well. But, it’s Dornfeld’s matter of fact and sometimes quite humorous attitude during those scenes that make them work.

There are some nice moments where the director gives us a window into where Alyce’s mind is at, for example, by having her masturbate to disturbing images of war and misery on the news channel of her television but, ultimately, the beauty of the way everything is presented kinda undercuts or dilutes any possible disturbing aspect of the film, I thought. There is a hint in the first half of the film, when Alyce starts seeing Carroll’s vengeful ‘pre-ghost’ in her head, when I thought the director was going to take us into full on horror film territory but, alas, that whole little sub-plot kinda gets dropped in the second half of the movie.

One of the things that I didn’t understand was that, despite the name being spelled differently in the title, the writer/director slips in a lot of Lewis Carroll references. So a guy will be giving her a choice of pills/drinks, she is referred to as living her life fallen down the rabbit hole, she has a cover version of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit playing on her car radio and, of course, the groan inducing moment when you discover Carroll Lewis’ surname. This theme kind of drops out halfway through, though it does briefly re-emerge when Alyce is cutting up one of the body’s and says the ‘off with your head’ line. Again, though, I’m not sure where the director is going with this because the film isn’t really much of an analogy or version of Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass novels, at least as far as I could tell. So, I confess, the links weren’t strong enough for me to take that stuff all that seriously.

The film isn’t particularly scary, I’d have to say... even though there’s one moment where the director homages the famous ‘bus sequence’ from Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur’s original 1942 version of Cat People. The original scare was and, still kinda is, quite a brilliant moment but, alas, a similar scene here doesn’t have anything like the same impact, it’s sad to say. Although, having said that, I did appreciate the reference being there in the first place.

So, a flawed movie perhaps, in terms of that kind of stuff but very successful in other ways. I especially liked the opening 20 minutes or so before the violence started and kinda liked the way the violence was filmed when those kinds of scenes did inevitably come. Alyce probably isn’t for everyone but, if you are interested in a standout performance by the actress playing the title role and some, somewhat off-beat moments you don’t necessarily see coming, then it’s worth giving this one a go. Also, lovers of gory movies might find the level of detail in the more bloodier scenes worth a look, if you’re that way inclined. Especially at the low prices you can get it for on the Amazon marketplace where the postage is probably more than the cost of the film (97p for a used copy, at time of publishing this review, seems like a good buy to me). Take a look some time because, whether you buy into the narrative or not, it does weave its own little atmosphere which may not be easily found elsewhere.