DVD Review: Strippers vs. Werewolves (15) / Director: Jonathan Glendening / Screenplay: Pat Higgins, Phillip Barron / Starring: Robert Englund, Steven Berkoff, Billy Murray, Lysette Anthony / Release Date: May 7th

Strippers vs. Werewolves starts off bad, trails off in the middle, and the less said about the end, the better.

What a bitter disappointment. This is a film that has squandered every opportunity it had to shine. It’s a lamentable take on horror and a monumental step in the wrong direction for the genre as a whole. If a review could be summarised in two words, it would be: Don’t Bother.

The story follows the untimely demise of werewolf Mickey (Martin Kemp) in the strip club Vixens owned by Jeanette, Sarah Douglas of Superman fame. His pack, led by Ferris (Billy Murry), a hard, cruel gangster type, seeks revenge. But these aren’t any ordinary run of the mill strippers the werewolves are up against. These gals can fight as well as strip, and the stage is set for a bloody, titanic showdown.

Strippers vs. Werewolves makes no secret of its tongue in cheek approach. It’s a send up of the genre, a tribute to all those wobbly set horrors of our youths. Or rather it should have been. But it falls short of the mark; in fact misses the mark completely. The script simply doesn’t deliver. There’s no substance to work with, no memorable dialogue, no interesting characters. In fact, the characters portrayed are for the most part heavily clichéd and uninspired. The press release refers to an adult with learning disabilities as a masturbating man-child. Also adding to the general woefulness is the almost complete lack of budget, we can only assume it must have been spent on the actors. There’s not a lot of cash here, and it really shows, but that’s not reason enough to produce one of the worst films of all time.

Dog Soldiers had a meagre budget and produced a strong Werewolf film. They couldn’t afford the transformation scenes so became creative in their approach. A few years back we were treated to Colin, a zombie flick with a heart, all for the meagre sum of £45 and a packet of biscuits. Colin proved you don’t need money to tell a good story. And here we come to the heart of the matter. The story sucks. The writing is so bad it would make an episode of Dora the Explorer positively shine. Amazing really when it actually has good actors stepping up for various roles: Billy Murry from EastEnders, Martin Kemp in a short-lived cameo, Alan Ford as a barman (sadly underused and lost in what are mostly filler scenes), Lysette Anthony – from Corrie – and worse of all, Robert Englund. How the mighty have fallen. In fairness to Mr Englund, his one scene is performed with sufficient menace, almost as if the writers pulled their collective finger out when they decided to bag a film star, but true to form once his one scene is out of the way they fall back on their laurels and serve yet another double helping of bland.

The film truly flounders, scenes fail to move the story on in any meaningful way, actors do the best they can, but it’s simply not enough. Stripers vs. Werewolves shies away from gore when it should embrace it. The strippers don’t actually do that much stripping. And it fails to engage on almost every level. So congratulations to Strippers vs. Werewolves, they have successfully achieved:

Blu-ray Review: The House By The Cemetery / Director: Lucio Fulci / Screenplay: Lucio Fulci / Starring: Catriona MacColl, Paolo Malco, Ania Pieroni / Release Date: May 21st

As his best, Italian maestro Lucio Fulci brought a disturbing, flyblown fleshiness to the horror genre. Watching him, you can practically smell those zombies rotting in the heat, and feel the clamminess of the sepulcher on your skin. But he also had a penchant for dreamy symbolism and portents of another world beyond the veil. The House by the Cemetery (1981) has too much of the second and not enough of the first to rank among his finest work, but it is still, like most of his oeuvre, bizarrely memorable.

Upon the mysterious death of an academic named Peterson, Norman and Lucy Boyle (Paolo Malco and Catriona MacColl) move to a small New England town where the husband, another academic, intends to continue the dead man’s investigations into suicide. They settle into a creepy old house (“Most of the old houses around here have tombs in them,” Norman says reassuringly when Lucy uncovers a dusty crypt in the hallway,) but are soon being victimized by a strange presence in the basement. Norman and Lucy’s son Bob, meanwhile, receives dire warnings from a mysterious red-haired girl in Victorian costume.

Shades of The Shining and The Amityville Horror, but Fulci makes rather a botched job of what is supposed to be a slow-burning tale of mounting tension. The script scatters loose ends and red herrings like a dog shedding fur – why is Norman so shifty-eyed? Why is Lucy popping pills? Is there something going on between Norman and the babysitter, Ann? And has he really been to the town before, as everyone seems to think? The dramatic set-pieces falter thanks to a certain haziness (the basement door has a habit of slamming and then creaking open again for no very good reason other than Fulci’s whim,) while Norman and Lucy react to each new crisis with a dreamlike torpor which will have you longing to take a knife to them yourselves.

Fulci fanatics will dignify all this with the claim that everything is deeply symbolic and not to be taken at face value – the basement is a gateway to Hell and the Boyles, perhaps, souls in purgatory. But sceptics will feel that Fulci simply lacked the self-discipline to orchestrate plausible chills in a minor key. (To be fair, this movie’s immediate predecessor, The Beyond, blurs dream and reality rather more successfully, as well as serving up dollops of soupy gore.) Luckily, the director gets back to what he does best with a Grand Guignol finale boasting enough body parts for half a dozen Frankenstein’s monsters. This exemplary release from Arrow Video offers a fine transfer and hours of extras to chew over.

Extras:

Reversible artwork sleeve / Double-sided fold-out artwork poster / Collector’s booklet / New HD restoration from the original uncut negative / Commentary with Catriona MacColl, moderated by Calum Waddell / Commentary with co-star Silvia Collatina, moderated by Mike Baronas of Paura Productions / Introduction to the film by star Giovanni Frezza / Back to the Cellar: Interview with star Giovanni Frezza / Cemetery Woman: Interview with star Catriona MacColl / Freudstein’s Follies: Interview with special effects artist Giannetto De Rossi / Wax Mask Finishing the Final Fulci: Interview with Sergio Stivaletti about his completion of Wax Mask after Fulci’s passing / Women of Italian Horror: Featuring Silvia Collatina (The House by the Cemetery), Stefania Casini (Suspiria/ Bloodstained Shadow) and Barbara Magnolfi (Suspiria/ The Sister Of Ursula) / Onstage Q&A Cast Reunion: Live from the Horrorhound convention: Featuring Catriona MacColl, Giovanni Frezza, Silvia Collatina, Carlo DeMejo and Dagmar Lassander / Italian Trailer Compilation / Deleted scene / Original House by the Cemetery Trailers and TV Spot

DVD Review: Hirokin – The Last Samurai / Cert: 15 / Director: Alejo Mo-Sun / Writers: Alejo Mo-Sun / Starring: Wes Bentley, Jessica Szohr, Angus Macfadyen / Release Date: Out Now

I know from experience that no one sets out to make a deliberately bad film. These things just happen despite themselves. Here we have a movie that is simultaneously bad while not being bad enough to warrent cult status.

The reason that this 2008 film is suddenly available to buy at all seems to be summed up in the phrase “It’s got Wes Thingy in it… You know Wes Thingy out of that other film… The one that’s big with the kids…” Wes Thingy is in fact Wes Bently who plays Seneca in The Hunger Games. A wily producer has looked at the success of the new film and jumped on its passing band wagon full of screaming fans.

Well, a word of warning to such fans. Just don’t bother. It is not very good. Not very good at all.

The plot, such as it is, concerns a planet where subjugated human like aliens – cheaper than CGI – scavenge the desert wasteland. Hirokin – enter the hero with the obligatory dark past – promptly sets off on a mission to fulfil his destiny. Having fought to the death to save his wife and son from the planet’s evil dictator – Griffin (Sands) – and his elite army of hunters (all dressed in Clone War castoffs). The eponymous lone warrior is left for dead in the (reasonably) vast desert. And the audience have trouble caring less. Armed with his samurai blade, Hirokin is forced to choose between avenging the murder of his family and fighting for the freedom of his adopted people. Oh and there’s a (small) rebellion thrown in to try and hold the viewer’s attention.

Even the presence of genre mainstay Julian Sands is not enough to rescue this slow motion car crash of a movie.

Yes, this feels like Dune’s poor relative but it has more in common with the Yeast Lords movie as seen in Gentlemen Broncos. The effects are shoddy and the story line is laboured. Perhaps the oddest aspect of this film however is the title. It has nothing what so ever to do with samurai other than featuring some disappointing sword play, which wouldn’t have looked out of place in an episode of Xena.

All in all, it has the feel of a movie you would come across while searching for something to watch at three AM with an itchy remote control thumb. Save your money. Wait for it to be on at 3am and let your insomnia be cured.

Special Features: None

DVD Review: Kiddy Grade / Cert: TBC / Director: Keiji Gotoh / Writers: Sonny Strait, Christopher Neel / Starring: Colleen Clinkenbeard, Aya Hirano, Ryoko Nagata, Monica Rial / Release Date: May 7^th

Sometime in the future, mankind has colonized the galaxy. Keeping the peace between the various planets is the Global Union, the strong arm of which is the Galactic Organisation of Trade and Tariffs (GOTT). This, in turn, has a secret shadow (ES) unit, staffed by superpowered operatives.

Eclair and Lumiere are lowly ‘C’ class agents who, between assignments, work as receptionists at GOTT HQ. One is strong and fast, while the other has the ability to telepathically manipulate all kinds of gizmos. Attired in cheeky barely-there outfits of stockings, frills and bows (and watched over by a silkily saturnine “auditor” named Armblast) they flit about the galaxy in a high-speed cruiser, bringing perps to book with inimitable panache. Lumiere causes confusion by popping bottles of champagne filled with nano-mist, while Eclair can turn her favourite scarlet lipstick into a terrifying whip. Occasionally, they run into fellow ES agents, including a gravelly-voiced transvestite and a chatterbox dressed as Red Riding Hood. And every now and then everyone stops for tea (Earl Grey from a teapot, with bone china cups and saucers).

This is space opera meets high camp, but counterbalancing the flights of fancy is the sense of a galaxy where money is the final arbiter. Despite the girls’ high spirits, the cases they become embroiled in are often knotty and unglamorous – the transport of prisoners and official documents, feuds within powerful financial groups, illegal trade in anti-gravity matter, intergalactic trade disputes, illegal distribution of terraforming tech, experiments in mass mind control.

As the episodes unfold, it becomes increasingly clear that GOTT itself is compromised, in the pocket of a ruling elite of pureblood Earthlings called the Nouvelesse. At the same time, through mysterious hints and flashbacks, we learn that Eclair and Lumiere are also not what they seem. They may look like hot teen girls at a cosplay convention, but their appearance belies their age and they are in fact centuries old. Should one body become damaged, they can be “encoded” into another and thus continue to live indefinitely. For Eclair, in particular, her long existence is taking its toll, as suppressed memories come back to haunt her and she finds herself in danger of repeating her past.

In Kiddy Grade‘s latter stages, quirky individual cases give way to an ongoing saga as Eclair and Lumiere buck the system and find themselves on a purge list. There are armies of clones, deaths, resurrections, disguises and more revelations that you can shake a china teapot at. Finally, it all ends, most satisfyingly, in a Star Wars-style battle with a planet-destroying space-station.

Technically, there is nothing that startlingly original about Kiddy Grade. The mecha consist of the conventional space craft, pimped up motorbikes and robots. The graphics, too, are serviceable rather than outstanding, although much love and attention has gone into catching the way Eclair’s short skirt flips up from her panties as she leaps into action. The fight sequences are brisk and efficient rather than inspired.

The real charm of the series lies in its balancing of whimsy and melancholy, and in the interplay of its main characters. Lumiere is winsome and fastidious, a lover of opera and fine wines. Eclair (wonderfully voiced by Colleen Clinkenbeard in the English version) is gauche, noisy and irrepressible. It’s fun to see the pair of them encountering the oddities of the various societies that make up the GU – the dandified, drawling yuppies of the Rosenfeld financial group, or the blush-makingly intrusive customs rigmarole that greets them upon arrival at the lush holiday world of Aure.

One or two of the individual episodes are wrapped up in a manner that’s a little too pat, and occasionally director Keiji Goto’s storytelling becomes so oblique and abbreviated as to be impenetrable. There are also, no doubt, layers of subtext which it’s hard for a Western viewer to appreciate. But overall Kiddy Grade is a superbly colourful tapestry of future worlds, full of fun, hip jokes and lovable characters. Once you start watching, you won’t even stop for tea.

Special Features: None

DVD Review: Absentia / Cert: 15 / Director: Mike Flanagan / Screenplay: Mike Flanagan / Starring: Katie Parker, Courtney Bell, Dave Levine, Morgan Peter Brown, Doug Jones / Release Date: July 9th

It is often the case that with so many films heading straight to DVD now, it is easy to tar them all with the same brush and lower your expectations accordingly when you come to view them. Absentia is one of those films that makes you happy that you had to wade through the shit to get to it. Already lauded on the festival circuit, this is an instant cult favourite if ever there was one.

The plot revolves around a pair of sisters, Callie (Katie Parker), who has had a somewhat troubled past involving drug addiction and never settling in one place, who comes to stay with heavily pregnant Tricia (Courtney Bell), who has settled down and married. Trouble is her husband, Daniel (Morgan Peter Brown) disappeared seven years ago, and Tricia is attempting to move on and going about the process of declaring Daniel legally dead – in absentia – before committing to her new love, local cop Detective Ryan Mallory (Dave Levine).

It’s not long before both sisters begin to have strange visions; flashes of a dishevelled and angry looking Daniel for Tricia and for Callie a mumbling and disturbed looking homeless man (the already emaciated Doug Jones) in the nearby underpass. He upsets her by muttering about getting away from ‘them’, keeps repeating ‘trade’ and that she must tell her son he’s alive.

The strange occurrences continue – passed off as stress induced hallucinations by Tricia’s therapist – but come to a head when Daniel suddenly appears outside the apartment, unkempt, malnourished and wearing the same clothes he went missing in. As they try to get to the bottom of what has happened, their lives will face even more trauma.

This really is a gem of a film, and benefits greatly from knowing as little as possible about it before seeing it. Writer/director Mike Flanagan (who part funded the film through Kickstarter) deserves heaps of praise for crafting a story that pulls you in by involving you with natural situations, camera work that feels like a fly on the wall documentary while still showing some nice flourishes, and a fantastical but believable mythology to tie the story together. It’s a film as much about the horrors of loss and moving on as the standard horror tropes, and everything about it – sound design, location, cinematography – works to its advantage and adds to the atmosphere.

Absentia is a film that gets under your skin, totally engrossing you, and while there are some jumps and stings, it does not rely on them for the scares. In fact, some of the visions are quite subtle and – like the characters – you begin to wonder if you really are seeing them. Indeed, even if you stripped away the more supernatural elements, the film would work as a haunting and harrowing drama. Imagine John Cassavetes directing horror.

In joke fans may get a kick out of some of the police officers’ names (Romero, Carpenter, Anderson, Del Toro) but this is more of a nod to those legends and in no way takes you out of the film – so much so that I only noticed it when researching the film on IMDB.

Highly recommended, especially for fans of intelligent, slow burn horror. Mike Flanagan is a name to watch out for in future if Absentia film is anything to go by.

Special Features: None

Blu-ray Review: Forbidden Zone / Cert: 18 / Director: Richard Elfman / Screenplay: Richard Elfman / Starring: Hervé Villechaize, Susan Tyrrell, Gisele Lindley, Marie-Pascale Elfman, Danny Elfman / Release Date: May 7th

A forgotten and (in the UK at least) overlooked cult film with a strong pedigree that may not be for everyone, but well worth a look for fans of the surreal and absurd. Want to see Tim Burton’s preferred composer as the Devil? Of course you do, but you will have to be prepared to enter the Sixth Dimension first.

The Hercules family own a house that has a door in the basement that for some inexplicable reason leads to the Sixth Dimension. Despite being warned against going near it, Frenchy (director Richard Elfman’s then wife Marie-Pascal Elfman) can’t resist, and is sucked into the bizarre world where frog butlers wait on topless princesses and the King and Queen (played by Hervé “zee plane, zee plane” Villechaize and his then beau, Susan (Cry Baby) Tyrrell) eat and have misaligned coupling atop a table with a human chandelier. King Fausto takes a shine to Frenchy much to the Queen’s annoyance, who tries her best to do away with her.

The rest of the family follow in an attempt to rescue Frenchy, only to experience even more bizarreness than you can shake a tail feather at.

Made as an attempt to document the on stage antics of performance art troupe The Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo, who updated old jazz and ragtime tunes as part of their surreal stage show. Most of the cast are members of the group, including director Elfman’s little brother, Danny – you may know him as the composer of almost all of Tim Burton’s films, and The Simpsons theme amongst others – who not only fronted the group well into their metamorphosis into the more regular rock group Oingo Boingo but wrote their original material too. He almost steals the show here as a Cab Calloway inspired Devil. The talent this group of odd balls spawned doesn’t stop there, screenwriter Matthew Bright (on screen in two roles, one a transvestite, the other a boy who thinks he’s a chicken) went onto write and direct the Reese Witherspoon classic Freeway.

The film’s shoestring budget adds a lot to its charm. Sets are made from cardboard, hand painted by the crew – including Fantasy Island’s Villechaize – and animated sequences in the vein of Terry Gilliam and Max Fleischer make up where the plot’s more fantastical ideas could not be realised. An off the wall mix of musical and surreal comedy, channelling the spirit of Spike Milligan and Viv Stanshall, with a touch of The Monkee’s Head and Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels. I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t an influence on The League of Gentlemen and The Mighty Boosh.

Forbidden Zone is presented here in a stunning HD transfer, both in its original black and white format, and for the first time in the UK, a colourised version. The extras on the disc provide plenty of background info for those unfamiliar with the Oingo Boingo legacy (most of the UK probably), but you don’t have to be a fan of the group to enjoy either the film or the supplements as they are just as enjoyable in their own right, and Elfman’s music is as memorable as ever.

If you like John Waters, David Lynch, Rocky Horror and to walk on the wild side, then you should give Forbidden Zone a shot, if you prefer your films a little more comprehensible then you might want to avoid.

Special Features: Commentary with Richard Elfman with writer/actor Matthew Bright, behind the scenes documentary with interviews (including Danny Elfman) and archive footage, scenes from The Hercules Family, a ‘lost’ Elfman film, outtakes, deleted scenes, Oingo Boingo video, theatrical trailer and a promo used to introduce a Japanese screening. The packaging comes with reversible sleeve, mini poster and booklet with essays on the film and rare stills.

DVD Review: Nazis at the Centre of the Earth / Cert: 15 / Director: Joseph J.Lawson / Screenplay: Paul Bales / Starring: Josh Allen, Max Bird-Ridnell, Christopher Karl Johnson, Jake Busey / Release date: July 30th 

The kings of the knock off film, The Asylum have never let us down. With the buzz around the imminent release Iron Sky, they leave their mutant sharks at home and head straight for that pinnacle of bad taste, the Nazis.

It’s not often you’ll hear this when it comes to this type of film, but I really feel there should be caution when giving out the synopsis. While it may not have Cabin in the Woods level plot twists, there is a part that has a jaw dropping, “I can’t believe they did that” aspect to it. To reveal that would take away a very enjoyable moment for the viewer.

What I can tell you is the basic premise, as nonsensical as it is. A pair of Antarctic researchers (Adam Burch and Dominique Swain) stumble upon something metal while drilling in the snow. (Quite why no one has found it before is a shock since it seems to be buried no less than an inch, but that’s just nit picking). They are more shocked that it carries the swastika. This is not a lucky discovery, however, since they are suddenly abducted by Nazi storm troopers in creepy looking gas masks. Mark (Burch) is taken to an operating theatre and relieved of his face. Paige (Swain) fares a little better by showing off her medical knowledge.

A team, led by Jake Busey, head out to find the pair. Coming across a large hole in the ice, they venture down – into a seemingly endless pit. Finding an underground civilization, they are soon confronted by the Nazi army, led by the notorious Dr Josef Mengele (Christopher Karl Johnson), who has kept himself alive by replacing 60% of his endoskeleton. Using the living flesh of a steady stream of victims, he has kept his army alive, but not as successfully as hoped. Busey’s band of doctors and experts are just what this Third Reich need.

Dispatching the only Jewish member of the team almost immediately – via a fancy vaporising ray gun no less – the rest are reluctantly put to work by Mengele, or used for his macabre transplants.

The experiments turn to stem cells and it turns out one of the team is pregnant, so Busey – who has been working for the ‘other side’ all along comes up with a particularly horrid idea. Let’s just say he has voided the warranty on that Dyson.

The first two thirds of the film are mostly exposition, but certainly not without some very gruesome events amongst the clunky dialogue – some of which is in German, a brave decision considering these films are usually aimed at the undiscerning masses that are not used to reading subtitles. Once we get into the final third however, it’s mind boggling audacity has to be admired.

Johnson is formidable as Mengele, rising above the Dr Everett Scott accent, although the same cannot be said for the rest of the cast who struggle through as best they can, but for the most part are unconvincing; some British accents at the end are straight from the Dick Van Dyke school of acting. The effects are about par for The Asylum, CGI being overused, and looking no better than a PS2 game at times. When practical effects are used (as in the ‘face off’ moments) it is squishy and nasty, just as it should be.

It is hard to say the film is good, because there are so many flaws, and let’s face it, it’s made by The Asylum, but damn, it is enjoyable, so it’s hard not to like it, which may not be apparent in the overall rating I give it. It’s certainly worth a viewing when it hits the screens over here, grab some beers, rally some mates and have a laugh.

Special Features: None

DVD Review: Demons 1 & 2 / Cert: 18 / Director: Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava / Screenplay: Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava / Starring: Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey, Karl Zinny, David Knight, Nancy Brilli, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni / Release Date: Out Now

The use of Dario Argento’s name above the titles of Demons 1 & 2 could be considered something of a misnomer, as they bare no relation whatsoever to other works by the master of Italian suspense. This infamous duo of schlock, though gory enough to rival Argento at his best, bares none of the crispness which, though perhaps not making his work palatable, at least leant it an air of sophistication. Demons 1 & 2 on the other hand have all the subtlety of a car-crash. Forget the fact they’re directed by Lamberto Bava, son of the legendary Mario, because it’s obvious from these films that cinematic panache didn’t run in the family.

Demons 1 focuses on the attendees of a horror film screening at a recently revamped Berlin movie theatre, and what befalls them during the ensuing nightmare evening. A display in the theatre’s foyer has an ancient pagan mask as its centrepiece, which a girl called Rosemary (Geretta Geretta) tries on, scratching herself in the process. The film being screened in the theatre charts the story of some kids who find a mask that transforms those who wear it into flesh eating demons, the same mask that now sits in the theatre’s front-of-house – which Rosemary and the other guests are about to discover to their cost.

Demons 2, starring Argento’s daughter Asia, continues the story some time later as the residents of a Berlin apartment block unwittingly unleash an ancient demon from a TV set which is playing a horror film. As the majority of the building’s inhabitants are transformed into gut-munching, bone-crunching demons, those uninfected have to battle for their lives during the customary apocalyptic climax.

The best way to view these films is back to back, the main interest lying in their distinctive similarities, with Demons 2 a virtual remake of Demons 1 save for setting and characters. The narrative thread of releasing the demons through the medium of film and television is the only really interesting touch, despite this theme having been explored before, and to better effect, in such classics as Videodrome and Poltergeist. Fractionally superior, Demons 1 contains the best death scene and is also the more atmospheric, being set within the claustrophobic interior of a darkened movie theatre.

Unfortunately even a host of unusually good extras including a comic book called Demons 3 (a graphic visualisation of a third grisly instalment), can’t save the films from what they ultimately are – prime examples of an era when gore won out over any attempt at style or substance. As a result they should be watched as quickly as possible, then just as speedily forgotten.

Demons:

Demons 2:

DVD Review: Alyce / Cert: 18 / Director: Jay Lee / Screenplay: Jay Lee / Starring: Jade Dornfield, Tamara Feldman, James Duval,  / Release Date: April 30^th

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland story has been through the wringer lately. From Tim Burton’s billion dollar grossing abomination to the baffling Malice in Wonderland, even through some of Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch. Alyce, directed by Jay Lee is the latest attempt to contemporise the classic tale and isn’t quite as successful at what it sets out to do as it should be.

Alyce (Jade Dornfield) is a corporate wage slave with a troubled past who one night descends into drugs and alcohol with her recently dumped best friend Carroll (Tamara Feldman). They are up on the roof of her apartment building literally high as a kite and Alyce accidentally pushes Carroll off the edge. Carroll is mortally wounded but survives; Alyce consumed by guilt descends into a world of drugs, paranoia and eventually murder. All the while she is surrounded by weird urban versions of the characters that appear in the Lewis Carroll story.

Alyce may be a low budget independent film but it looks great, it has kind of a rough sheen to it whilst at the same time evoking the films of Michael Mann. The night time landscape presented is dark and haunting with danger lurking round every corner. The acting is also superb; Jade Dornfield plays the part well coming across as sexy, troubled, vulnerable and psychotic depending on where you are in the story. Dornfield is supported by some great character performances, particularly Eddie Rouse as a Mad Hatter type figure represented as a drug dealer. Also unusual for this type of film is that the dialogue in the script is top notch, there are some cracking monologue’s and brilliant lines that make you believe these are living breathing people trapped in a nightmare.

This film has everything going for it but what holds it back from greatness is the fact that Alyce has almost nothing to say and nowhere to go past the intriguing set up. Early on I thought that this was going to wind up being somehow very clever with something to say about our modern society. Alyce works in a cubicle and her boss is jealous that she is noticed more than her, also in one scene Alyce masturbates to images of the conflict in the Middle East. Interesting scenes loaded with meaning, but what is that meaning?

Any interesting commentary is tossed aside in favour of a last thirty minutes which gets graphic and contains possibly the longest dismemberment scene for a long while. If you like your films violent then you will not be disappointed as Alyce takes revenge and tumbles further down the rabbit hole. The film is very much a case of a missed opportunity but is an enjoyable wallow in the strange nonetheless.

Special Features: None