Alyce Kills

Alyce Kills Photos

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Cast & Crew

Jade Dornfeld

Alyce

Tamara Feldman

Carroll

James Duval

Vince

Eddie Rouse

Vince

Larry Cedar

Harold

Yorgo Constantine

Warner

Megan Gallagher

Ginny

Tracey Walter

Landlord

Jay Lee

Director

Jay Lee

Screenwriter

Zak Kilberg

Producer

Linda L. Miller

Producer

Duncan Blake

Executive Producer

Deniz Önce

Co-Executive Producer

Jay Lee

Cinematographer

Amanda Rosbrook

Production Design

Georgia Schwab

Art Director

Billy White Acre

Original Music

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Critic Reviews for Alyce Kills

Audience Reviews for Alyce Kills

• Nov 19, 2013

  <B><I>ALYCE KILLS </I> (2011) independent</B> WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY: Jay Lee FEATURING: Jade Dornfeld, Tamara Feldman, James Duval, Eddie Rouse, Larry Cedar GENRE: <B>THRILLER, NON-SUPERNATURAL HORROR</B> TAGS: rape, dismemberment PLOT: <B>In this pointless, yet engaging psycho-thriller, a young woman unintentionally destroys her best friend while on drugs, then spirals into anti-social behavior, dragging her acquaintances into the dark morass of her twisted psyche. </B> COMMENTS: 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.
  

  Super Reviewer
• Aug 15, 2013

  Even a person with a 3rd grade level understanding of literature can see the connection between. The most obvious of this would the fact that Alyce is best friends with a woman whose name is Carroll Lewis. The author of Alice in Wonderland is Lewis Carroll, so that one was obvious. There are definitely other references to the story riddled throughout the film, so it's obvious the film was greatly influenced by the story. But at the same time, the movie is still very good as a standalone film. You don't need to have read the book to enjoy what's going on here. The movie tells the story of this woman, Alyce, whose struggles with the guilt of having knocked her friend off the roof of the apartment building she lives in causes a downward spiral from which she will, likely, never recover. This is psychological horror for about 85% of it, the rest 15% will satisfy even the most jaded gore hound. And the thing is that the gore isn't really that 'exploitative' like it feels in most horror movies, it makes sense in this movie. It's clear that Alyce is headed down a path that will culminate in violence. The film does a good job at portraying Alyce's guilt through its atmosphere and visual aesthetics. Not to mention, Jade Dornfeld, who made her screen debut in this movie, does a great job at, physically, portraying that guilt while at the same time selling the toll this guilt must be taking on her psyche. This woman pulls off psycho very well. The film is also smartly written with some darkly funny moments. Really, this is a lot better film than I was expecting and it's probably better than most horror films that will hit the theaters this year, so I'd certainly recommend it.
  

  Super Reviewer