Alice in Terrorland review.
Alice in Terrorland isn’t the movie you expect it to be. In fact, it arrived at the right moment in time.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Alice in Terrorland
Directed by Richard John Taylor
Written by Richard John Taylor
Starring Lizzy Willis, Jon-Paul Gates, Steve Wraith, Rula Lenska, Nikol Atanasova, Rikki Kimpton, Lila Sarner and Nigel Troup
Alice in Terrorland Review
Another one? It feels like a month can’t go by without someone turning a classic children’s story into a low budget horror movie. With Mickey Mouse entering the fray this year…there doesn’t appear to be any end in sight.
That was my thought before pushing play on Alice in Terrorland. I expected another bad slasher movie with poor rubber masks and even worse effects. To say I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Terrorland isn’t one of those movies at all would be an understatement. The biggest crime that the endless parade of horror movies based on public domain characters is guilty of is not even bothering to utilize their stories. Sure, there is an off brand looking Winnie-the-Pooh here and an anthropomorphic Lamb belonging to a crazy lady named Mary there…but the movies have nothing to say. Not within their own narrative. Not even in relation to the world they’re borrowing from.
That’s what makes Alice in Terrorland stand out. It endeavors to do something that the others couldn’t be bothered to do. It understands the source material…and it applies it to its own story. Put simply, this movie arrived at the best possible time. With two Cinderella horror movies on the horizon and God knows how many Mickey Mouse slashers…Alice benefits a lot from having a simple narrative purpose to using Lewis Carroll’s story. I’ll admit my judgement is a bit clouded by the movie’s effort. It’s still not good. I don’t want to give you the impression that it is a secret gem waiting to be discovered. But it tries something. And we’ve reached a moment in time where that is worth more than it used to be.
Carroll’s book exists in the world of Terrorland. The movie uses it as a plot device designed to slip its own Alice (Lizzy Willis) into a nightmare filled with familiar characters. Or, several nightmares, as they were. Don’t expect rubber masked slasher hijinks this time around. Alice in Terrorland is a psychological horror movie about a young woman dealing with trauma. Yeah…you knew if it wasn’t one thing it would be the other. Trauma horror is inescapable. And…preferable to standard public domain horror, as it turns out. Aside from an early visit from a man in a white rabbit half mask…we’re dealing with regular faces here.
Alice recently lost her parents to a fire. Authorities eventually track down her grandmother Beth (Rula Lenska) who takes her in. Beth lives in a secluded home surrounded by acres of woods. Lewis Carroll himself reportedly lived on the land that has come to be called “Wonderland”. If that isn’t enough for you…Beth reads chapters of Alice in Wonderland to an ailing Alice. Her dreams become populated with the characters of the novel.
All the expected Alice in Wonderland things are present in Terrorland. They’re all stripped down to basics and served as more of an homage than a copy. This is far more reserved than Pooh and Piglet on a hunting spree. In place of thoughtless bloodshed, Alice in Terrorland gives us a lost young woman confronted by her fears, depression and…yes…trauma. It’s not at all what you expect from a movie with this title in 2024. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that Alice in Terrorland still isn’t a good movie. It’s just better than those soulless cash-ins. At times it feels like a purposeful and interesting response to them. This is how you use beloved characters to tell an original horror story. This is how you weave your themes into a world people already know. There are some purposely hammy performances here. In the heightened, surreal dream world…they feel at home.
Unfortunately, Alice in Terrorland isn’t much more than an unexpected effort. It’s still a limited movie. You won’t be traveling through Wonderland or running into characters as you know them. The journey is confined inside the mind of a sick girl. Empty rooms replace iconic imagery. Still, in comparison to contemporary efforts…it chooses a far more interesting road than you would guess given the title. It’s not enough to deliver big time. But it’s a start.
Scare Value
The biggest boost to Alice in Terrorland is that it comes at a time when every classic children’s story is being reimagined as a no budget slasher. This is decidedly not that. Instead of poorly designed costumes and amateur splatter effects…Terrorland aims at psychological horror that connects to its chosen material. Perhaps it’s simply a case of arriving at the right moment. Certainly, more so than playing the right notes. But…that’s not nothing.
2.5/5
Alice in Terrorland Links
Rent/Buy on VOD from VUDU and Amazon
