Disturbing Alyce a Gory Psychological Descent
Alyce (Jade Dornfeld) is just starting to slip back into her old life. She’s spending a night out with former best friend and roommate Carroll (Tamara Feldman), the two having a complex relationship that became increasingly strained the longer they spent in one another’s company. But bygones are bygones, and now they’re attempting to put the pieces of their friendship back together, hitting the clubs and dropping a little Ecstasy all in the pursuit of a relationship both want to reestablish.
PHOTO: The Collective / Bloody Disgusting
After a run in with Carroll’s boyfriend Vince (James Duval), the two find themselves on the rooftop of Alyce’s apartment complex a tiny bit high and more than a little drunk. Things are said, some of it playful, some of it harsh, none of it meant to hurt. Tragedy strikes, and Alyce is accidentally the cause, the cost of her unintended actions sending this emotionally frazzled woman into the arms of lecherous drug dealer Rex (Eddie Rouse) while also leading her down a path of murderous madness that will have gruesomely homicidal consequences.
Alyce Kills is a disturbing psychotically thriller where the simplest mistake can end up leading to the most unspeakable of places. Writer/director Jay Lee, arguably best known for Zombie Strippers, not exactly a good thing, makes a massive leap forward in both technique and style, showcasing a restraint and a carefulness in both pacing and character I didn’t see coming. He allows Alyce’s descent into madness to happen more or less naturally, and while certain aspects of the film don’t ring true, the underling subtext remains effectively, and uncomfortably, unsettling throughout all the same.
Dornfeld’s performance is pretty great. In nearly every scene, forced to transmit the majority of Alyce’s past history through fractured sentences, pensive glances and timid shrugs, the actress does a nice job of giving her mental deterioration life. Her connection to Carroll is a deeply passionate one, the effect the tragedy has on her instantaneously self-destructive. Her devolution into cocksure carnivore feels ominously natural, each tiny step taking her in a direction this is as frightening as it is primitively upsetting.
This is a B-grade exploitation thriller, so there are quite a few shortcuts that Lee takes that can’t help but undercut somewhat the dramatic impact of much that transpires. Alyce’s fall into Rex’s clutches just sort of happens, her transformation into a drug-addicted hellion equally as immediate. More than that, the director wallows in the more depraved and diabolical aspects of this tale with voyeuristic relish, as such there are times where it becomes increasingly difficult to care for Alyce or to despair at her destructive descent into gleeful mental anguish.
PHOTO: The Collective / Bloody Disgusting
At the same time, mixing elements of Roman Polanski’s Repulsion into a hellacious stew of regret, pain and misery, Lee manages to keep things just observational enough that the protagonist’s plight ends up resonating on an emotional level that’s for more affecting than it potentially has any right to be. When Alyce makes the turn towards dismembering madness it’s hard not become infatuated with what she is going to do next or how she imagines she’s going to extricate herself from an increasingly blood-splattered dilemma of her own creation. It’s fascinating, disgusting and horrific all at the same time, everything building to an eerily ghoulish conclusion of malevolent serenity that caused my blood to run icily cold.
The audience for Alyce Kills is a niche one; no surprise there. At the same time, there’s enough of merit here, especially Dornfeld’s driven, emotionally nuanced performance, that I can’t help but wish a larger audience would take a chance on giving the film a look. Lee’s latest might not be perfect, might not achieve all of its larger goals, yet it still makes an impact that’s impossible to dismiss, showing an intriguing progression on the part of the director I hope will continue into his future projects.
Film Rating: 2½ (out of 4)
