User Reviews

What is this movie about? It's about a chick who goes crazy. Or---who was not right in the head in the first place and circumstances pushed her over the edge.

The first part of the movie has Alyce and her best friend Carroll out on the street late at night. They're both drunk having a public heart-to-heart. Why? After meeting up with her boyfriend earlier at a bar, Carroll found out her boyfriend Vince is cheating on her. Later, they arrive at Alyce's place and consider making out (sorry guys, that went nowhere). Then Carroll suggest that they go out and get drugs. This they do. Later Carroll winds up in a hospital. All of this eats up about 20 mins of the movie. The next part is about how Alyce copes with her sense of guilt. She's a nervous wreck and seeing things. The movie seemed like a ghost story at this point to me. To help her cope, Alyce goes back to the same drug dealer she and Carroll went to earlier to buy drugs. Her behavior gets even weirder.

The movie is about a hour and a half. By the last half hour Alyce has totally flipped and the movie doesn't appear to be a ghost story anymore but about a psycho bitch. The ending is so over-the-top in terms of the story and violence, that it becomes a kind of "horror comedy" whereas earlier it seemed like a serious offbeat psychological thriller. Finally, all I can say about this movie is that it's a curious mix of style and content. Subject matter includes: drugs, drunkenness, masturbation, necrophilia, rough sex, butchery (only the last item was explicit). As far as the style goes, it seemed light at first (where's this thing going?), then serious (Damn!), then both light and serious (Huh?) Love, Boloxxi.

After accidentally knocking her best friend off a roof, Alyce (Jade Dornfeld) is haunted by guilt and delves into a brutal nightmare wonderland of sex, drugs and violence, her mind tearing itself apart along with anyone else who gets in her way.

As others have mentioned, trying to put this film into any one genre is pretty challenging. The marketers seem to want this to be a ghost story, but that is a very small part of what really happens. Following Alyce's journey is not horror, but something a little more than drama.

The attempt to draw from "Alice in Wonderland" is strange. Clearly we have "Alyce" and her friend "Carroll Lewis", which are obvious references. We even have James Duval, who will be known by many as playing a rabbit in "Donnie Darko" (though his character here is anything but Alyce's guide). And there the similarities end.

Director Jay Lee has moved up in the world from his days (not long ago) making "Zombie Strippers". Much of this is a "really satisfying slow burn" (in the words of Nikki Hopeman), but has more to offer than just well-paced suspense. Others have made interesting comparisons, with Chuck Bowen labeling it "a blunt, trashy fusion of 'Repulsion' and 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'." Brian Tallerico was reminded of "great films like 'Repulsion' and 'May'". Unlike these two, I did not see the "Repulsion" connection, but that is a high praise.

Bowen says the film "is distinctive because Lee doesn't invite us to sympathize with Alyce; she isn't a doomed wallflower in the tradition of the heroes of Carrie, May, or many others". Quite true -- she is no hero or anti-hero, but merely the protagonist we follow, whether her path is justified or not, sane or insane. And that makes it a stronger film.

I wasn't too impressed with this one. I felt that a lot of the cinematography was lacking for an effectively shot film for the viewer to enjoy. Too many dark sequences when characters were not properly lit. If done on purpose, it was a poor choice. The technical aspect of making the film is probably the biggest. Aside from the lighting, what about the sound mix? Why is it almost DEAD QUIET in the bar / club when a band is playing and there are dozens of people. Everything is the background is muted and THAT really took me out of it because it was obvious they wanted you to focus on the banal dialogue.

The film sure takes awhile before it gets going, all I knew about the flick was that Alyce Kills....get it?. The reason for her descent into this madness was not justified to me. People might be more impressed with the first 3/4's of the film, but I rather enjoyed it when she gave in to the murderous impulses, as weak as they were. The scenes where she goes after people who've wronged her were the best parts. To me, the film took too long to get to the interesting parts. It drags.

Gore factor? Not much here. It's mainly the "aftermath" we see lots of blood, but it doesn't really spill, it's just on the floor. A good sight gag that I enjoyed is when Vince went to call someone while hanging onto his guts, once he reached for the phone, his guts fell out. I feel like this film needed a bit more of that for me personally to enjoy it.

I will say this though, it had a great ending.

There were a few scenes that I thought were weird and definitely piqued my interest, all of which happen AFTER she has lost her mind. The war masturbation, Necrophilia boob touching and weird sex fight. These scenes are not the norm and when a film does something odd, it catches my attention. Unfortunately these scenes are not enough to save the film as a whole.

Stop watching, rating and reviewing horror films unless you are a fan of the genre! As a general rule, I always assume a horror film is good if it gets at least a five on IMDb. That's because you can assume most of the people rating it don't like horror, so the low ratings from the anti-horror raters are balanced out by the higher ratings from those of us who appreciate it. This is a wonderful turn on the psycho-killer sub-genre. Alyce is an attractive, somewhat withdrawn young woman who pretty much leads her life as an extension of her best friend with whom she obviously has more than a "friendly" attraction. After an evening of partying and drug use, she accidentally pushes her best friend off of a roof prompting her descent into depravity. She is obviously unbalanced from the first scene, so it is extremely believable that she is pushed over the edge herself after losing her best friend at her own hand. The rest is grisly, morbid fun. Jade Dornfeld is excellent, sexy, and extremely plausible as the crazy girl who is suddenly a drug addict, prostitute, necrophiliac, and killer all at once while developing a new sense of self-confidence. Definitely a 7 out of 10 - a must for horror fans.

Alyce is a strange kind of flick. It isn't that easy to say what kind of genre this really is. It starts as a normal flick that changes into a ghost story to turn into a mobster kind of story and finally in pure horror.

Jay Lee, the director already made a few horrors like The Slaughter (2006) and the much more known Zombie Strippers! (2008). So he clearly knew his stuff. But this time the flick doesn't start immediately with horror. The first 20 minutes you really get to know the two main characters, Alyce (Jade Dornfield) and her best friend Caroll ( Tamara Feldman as seen in Hatchet). But Alyce is the ice queen and doesn't like what she is seeing. After becoming very dark she pushes her best friend off the wall by accident. Thinking she's death she informs the police what happened with a lie. But then the police tells her her best friend isn't death. From there on Alyce becomes paranoid (the ghost part) and do needs drugs like she used to take with Caroll. While taking drugs she's really losing her mind and goes berserk. Once that happens this flick turns into a pure gory horror. And by that I mean that it isn't for the easy offended or the squeamish. Gore hounds will love the last part of Alyce. But by going over the top with the gory parts it even comes close to comedy. The way Alyce reacts is sometimes a bit funny.

On part of the gore the effects used are sublime. It really becomes messy. And just have a look at the faces being hurt, it really looks like the real stuff. Sadly by being a slow starter and dropping a bit down in the middle of the flick I can't say that I recommend it to the gorehounds. They just have to watch the final.

Jade Dornfeld did an excellent job here. She's really believable. I must say that I loved this more then Zombie Strippers! because you keep watching and really want to know what is going on with Alyce. But the problem is that the distribution of Alyce wasn't that good. It was out on the shelves for a while but didn't had any promo in specialized mags and nowadays it is almost unfindable in the shops but do search it on the web. It's worth your money. This was a big surprise for a horror buff like me.

Gore 4/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 4/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 1/5

I'm not gonna compare this in terms of significance with a movie by Polanski or how good/bad it is side by side to it. But there is something in there that reminded me of that one particular movie. Better to aim high, than just copying anyone I guess. The movie of course will be repulsive too. It might not turn out the way you expect it too. As other reviewers have stated, it does change pace a few times. But in my estimation it does work quite nicely.

Since I didn't read anything about the story before I watched this (as always), I was pleasantly surprised that the movie was not as simple as the cover would suggest (at least the German cover). The insanity that ensued is not without flaws and it is a bit explicit (in terms of violence), but for a low budget movie, this is really well made and acted

Watched most of this in fast forward. No action till the last 20 minutes or so...

What happens when an otherwise normal, possibly even boring and plain, girl lose her marbles and go crazy? Well, that is basically what "Alyce" is about.

The movie starts out fairly slow, letting you get to know the two best friends Alyce (played by Jade Dornfeld) and Carroll (played by Tamara Feldman). When Carroll finds out that her boyfriend is cheating on her, she takes Alyce with her and goes drinking and take some drugs. Ending up on top of a building, tragedy strikes when Carroll is accidentally pushed over the ledge by Alyce, as a freak accident. From there on, Alyce goes into denial and starts to escape from reality by sorting to using drugs, ending up in a violent world of drug dealers and having to deal with a drug-induced reality.

For a movie of this sort, then "Alyce" was a bit tame. Sure the movie had its moments, but personally I found the constant flood of flashed images of a dead Carroll was a bit too much, and it was starting to become irritating. What was working in the movie, though, was the way it was shot and put together, because following Alyce's delve down into madness, it was like being there with her. However, there are better movies out there in the same category, and such examples of that would be "May" or "She's Crushed".

Don't get me wrong, "Alyce" is not a bad movie, but it was just lacking something extraordinary to make the movie memorable and stand out. It is great the first time around when you watch it, but I don't believe that this movie has enough contents to support being watched a second time. It was, however, an interesting approach to the movie that the director, Jay Lee, took, going from what seemed would be a movie about Alyce being haunted by her guilt (and seeing her dead friend constantly) to a movie about drug use and slipping into a broken down mental state. Thumbs up for that twist, though.

The acting in the movie was actually quite good, and Jade Dornfeld (playing Alyce) was actually doing it really great in her lead role, and she was carrying the movie, definitely. Also quite noticeable was Eddie Rouse (playing Rex the drug dealer).

The way that the movie ended was just priceless. I loved that ending, and it actually made it worth sitting through.

With a cursory acknowledgment of the Lewis Carrol tale, Alyce is as much an entry-level clerical answer to the Fortune 500 American Psycho (2000), as it is a morbid odyssey of self discov- uh, make that self-destruction. Like a high-speed bullet train to Hell, Alyce Kills is novel, slick, and exciting, but it doesn't take us where we want to go.

Young, pert Alyce (Jade Dornfeld) toils away in a depressing corporate cubicle for a shrewish boss at a thankless job. After work she trudges home to her cramped apartment to freshen up before some much needed steam-venting at dingy nightclubs. It's not much of a life, but Alyce has her friend Danielle (Rena Owen), an alpha female who provides Alyce with a framework of guidance upon which follower Alyce proves to be reliant.

When Alyce and Danielle take the Generation X drug "ecstasy," Danielle sexually leads on Alyce. It comes out that Alyce has a crush on Danielle who then rejects her.

Is it an accident then when Alyce "accidentally" pushes her off the roof a short while later? It's not clear whether Alyce is vindictive and a little crazy, or merely reckless, and irresponsible. Danielle stands on the ledge, tempting fate, Alyce mock-pushes her. Alyce is playing a game and behaves as if she doesn't intend the result -Danielle's dive to the pavement. But Alyce definitely intends to make contact, and under the circumstances it's no surprise when Danielle plunges to her doom.

Despite that it led to tragedy, Alyce decides she likes ecstasy and trades sex for the drug from a repulsive dealer. Under the influence of the psychedelic, Alyce locks herself in her apartment for marathon-length trips during which she perpetually masturbates to violent videos. Conniving to obfuscate her complicity in Danielle's misfortune leads Alyce to take increasing risks until she pulls out all the stops. Traipsing across an urban landscape of bizarre characters, settings and situations, Alyce taunts the family of her victim, and eventually conspires bloody murder against those who annoy and inconvenience her.

Having now lost Danielle's boundary-defining structure, Alyce's fragile veneer of sanity falls away like an uncoupled caboose from a speeding express. Her locomotive throttle is wide open and there's no engineer in the cab. Alyce resolves to take charge of her own life, but her brand of self-assertive, feminist "empowerment" is to embark upon a self-indulgent journey of risky behavior. Yet it's more like a spree, and it degenerates into a maelstrom of self destruction, dragging those closest to her along for a hell-ride on her crazy train.

The theme of women scheming against men has been around at least since ancient Greece. From Aristophanes' Lysistrata, to the Biblical Eve convincing Adam to bite the proverbial apple, we've seen versions of the femme fatale in various literary incarnations through the ages. A few include Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth, and Cleopatra, Daniel Defoe's opportunistic Moll Flanders, Oliver Goldsmith's lighthearted, scheming, Katie Hardcastle in his 1773 play, She Stoops To Conquer, the conniving Matilda in Matthew Gregory's 1796 supernatural Gothic novel The Monk: A Romance, and the malevolent man-hater, Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.

Whereas these feminine plotters employed cunning and sexual manipulation to achieve their aims, their modern counterparts resort to brute force. The concept of the fairer sex outwitting men has evolved into the myth of womens' domination over men, and convoluted orchestrations have given way to the karate kicks and machine guns used by characters such as secret agent Emma Peel (Diana Rigg; Uma Thurman in the 1998 film version) in BBC's The Avengers, to Max Guevera (Jessica Alba) in TV's Dark Angel, and La Femme Nikita (Anne Parillaud; Bridget Fonda in the US remake). The latest trend has dark-psyched vixens engaging in just plain psychopathic killing sprees.

Alyce's quirky, but undeveloped character may be inspired by the leads in May (2002), and Neighbor (2009), two similar stories about loner hellcats who indulge their necrophilic and cannibalistic urges through acts of violence. Yet May (Angela Bettis), the film's namesake, commits her violence via a misguided search for an similarly misfit mate. In Neighbor, "The Girl," (America Olivo) thrill-kills for the sheer sadistic pleasure of it, making a living by robbing her victims and using their homes like motels.

Alyce however, lacks any sensible or even cognizant motivation at all. Her deeds defy logic, her methods are unsound, and Alyce's lack of planning is sure to bring her only more trouble. We're not sure if even she understands her actions. This makes her singularly one dimensional.

It's a profound disappointment, too. What's engrossing about Alyce's sexy character is not what she does, but the wry way she does it with her distinctively iconoclastic demeanor. It's not the revulsion inherent to her wanton acts of sex and violence that catches our attention, but the manner in which her smug, witty bearing holds out the promise of a satisfying payoff. We keep waiting to tumble into an epiphany of insight into her disturbed psyche, or at least some commentary about human nature or revenge. It never happens, and we're left feeling like the lone passenger on a runaway train with no destination in sight, and no emergency pull-cord to stop the projector.

Two airhead bimbo girlfriends (Alyce and Carroll) wander around downtown L. A. looking for parties and drugs and blather incessantly about who in their circle of friends they hate while making juvenile jokes like inserting the word "vagina" into the titles of famous movies... That's the first third of the film.

Then while totally zonked out on whatever the last drug it was that they scored, while jumping, dancing, and frolicing around on the roof of Alyce's apartment building (and also, of course, spouting more insipid dialogue), Alyce "accidentally" knocks Carroll over the edge. Cue the begin of Alyce's slide into homicidal psychosis as first she smothers the hospitalized Carroll with a pillow, then starts knocking off the annoying hipsters and other low-lifes previously encountered. And just to make sure the film can reel in the Horror film suckers who salivate when they hear the word "gore," Alyce's kills during the last portion of the film are made particularly visceral and eviscerating...

If films that the descriptive terms of empty-headed, vile, squalid, and repellent are what you're hoping to find in your movie-watching experience...well then this is the film for you!

I was a little worried they weren't going to show any of the good stuff, but patience paid off eventually. Prior to that, the film featured some excellent acting and still held my interest. Not sure why the lead actress hasn't done much else. Perhaps the experience of making this movie pushed her too close to the edge. A spontaneous selection that turned out to be an exception to my usual spontaneous duds.

Every scene is almost pitch black or lit from overhead through a porthole. Either that or they live in a cave. Extreme closeups w super short focal length so everything except the face in extreme closeup is out of focus. It's just an annoying one trick. You could easily replace 90% of the movie by leaving the lens cap on.

For the story? Alyce is a straight up whackjob. Whether it's the binge drinking or the drugs or she fell out her mama that way, who knows? Who cares? She's an annoying a-hole either. But the good thing is that there's not a single character who doesn't really need to have their head beat in with a hammer.

Decent thriller w little dark comedy .Lead charac ter does a great job as a obsessed friend who goes off the rails.

Disturbing, bizarre, violent, and dark. She's definitely Mad or she wouldn't have gone there. Do not give up on this ... the ending is killer.

This Movie starts off as what appears to be a somewhat cliché and predictable Hollywood flick but given time and patience spirals out of control into a world of actual insanity. the gore and violence is superb, and this movie has its moments of dark psychotic humor. this movie belongs to the appreciators of underground entertainment, Raw and Relentless, only after the movie climbs to its peak i feel the movie ended abruptly, i would've enjoyed a darker ending but i must say the people that worked on this movie did an amazing job, i am so sick of stereotypical people giving movies unfair biased reviews because their minds have been numbed to only enjoy stereotypical diluted Hollywood crap. This movie is for real art lovers.

Odd little flick. Other reviewers have noticed how you have several movies in one, though not at the same time. First drama, then psychological horror, then out-and-out splatter-fest. Those who were expecting just the latter will be annoyed at the time it takes to get there. Those, like me, who did not know what sub-genre it was, may be thrown off-guard by the last 20 minutes, a killing orgy that is more typical of low-budget exploitation flicks (except that those have cardboard characters, while this one has some character development). And the gore starts very, very suddenly. Maybe if the order of the killings were reversed (first the less gory gun killings, then the more gory), it would work better. A continuous descent into violence.

The use of humor is also peculiar. When human misery begins in the second act, it is taken seriously. When hell breaks loose in the third, the movie tries - with some success, I admit - to be funny.

So the three movies seem to not fit together, but the thing is, they are *all* effective on their own. The relationship of the two girls in the beginning is something you can relate; the protagonist's self-inflicted humiliation in the middle is touching; and the gorefest in the end satisfies the fans of the sub-genre.

The last scene, by the way, was funny and quite ingenious. Probably the only of its kind in revenge/exploitation stories.

A minor complaint: there is zero female nudity, even though one particular scene demanded it. The protagonist is having sex with her nightgown on for no particular reason. It is clearly a matter of the actress refusing to do it, and the viewer is too aware of that (yes, I am actually saying the absence of breasts is distracting).

So you may want check it out on netflix stream, but only if you are very much into horror. Not quite worth a rental.

Was this supposed to be a thriller? Horror movie? Commentary on what happens when you have unprotected sex with drug dealers? Or drugs? Or this is what Hunter Thompson's world would be if he were a chick? Huge skip it moment.