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[BD Selects] We Grab A Bat And Swing With ‘Alyce’!

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Alyce

We’re excited to announced the next Bloody Disgusting Selects title as we have acquired North American rights to horror film Alyce for DVD, Video On Demand and Digital release.

In the bloody thriller helmed by Zombie Strippers director Jay Lee, and produced by Social Construct in Association with Scream HQ, “a young woman haunted by guilt and delving into a brutal nightmare wonderland of sex, drugs and violence, her mind tearing itself apart along with anyone else who gets in her way.

Starring Hatchet‘s Tamara Feldman, alongside James Duval (Donnie Darko, Doom Generation), Eddie Rouse (Pandorum, Undertow) and Jade Dornfeld (Everything Will Happen Before You Die), Alyce is a a Ultra-gritty psychological thriller nestled between Alice in Wonderland and a modern vision of Taxi Driver.

Check out two pieces of sales art from last year’s film markets and a long synopsis after the break. Also available from BD Selects is The Woman, Atrocious, YellowBrickRoad, Phase 7, Chop, The Pack, Coldfish and Outcast. All available in stores, VOD and digital. Alyce, an introverted young woman, tries to console her friend, Carroll, after Carroll discovers her boyfriend has been cheating. The girls get drunk and take ecstasy before heading up to the roof of Alyce’s apartment building. Intoxicated and giddy, the girls start playing around but one drunken stumble later knocks Carroll off the ledge of the six-story building.

Panicked, Alyce returns to her apartment and begins to quickly unravel.

Miraculously, Carroll doesn’t die but is severely broken and unable to speak. Alyce lies about her involvement in the tragedy but it ceaselessly haunts her. She seeks refuge in drugs and more drugs, exchanging sexual favors to get and stay high. She loses sleep, her job, and soon, her sanity.

Until, that is, Alyce decides to take control of the situation. She puts an end to her anxieties of being discovered by suffocating Carroll. The sense of control she garners with this single act empowers her and she moves on for more. She kills the cheating boyfriend but finds that disposing of his body is more trouble than she’d bargained for. But it’s not a job that a blender, a microwave, a hack saw, a baseball bat, and a garbage disposal, can’t eventually take care of.

And then she goes off, quite rationally, to take control of the rest of her life and all of the people that have been controlling her.

Alyce

Horror movie fanatic who co-founded Bloody Disgusting in 2001. Producer on Southbound, V/H/S/2/3/94, SiREN, Under the Bed, and A Horrible Way to Die. Chicago-based. Horror, pizza and basketball connoisseur. Taco Bell daily. Franchise favs: Hellraiser, Child's Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Scream and Friday the 13th. Horror 365 days a year.

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SCREAMBOX Hidden Gems: 5 Movies to Stream Including Dancing Vampire Movie ‘Norway’

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Pictured: 'Norway'

The Bloody Disgusting-powered SCREAMBOX is home to a variety of unique horror content, from originals and exclusives to cult classics and documentaries. With such a rapidly-growing library, there are many hidden gems waiting to be discovered.

Here are five recommendations you can stream on SCREAMBOX right now.


Norway

At the Abigail premiere, Dan Stevens listed Norway among his four favorite vampire movies. “I just saw a great movie recently that I’d never heard of,” he told Letterboxd. “A Greek film called Norway, about a vampire who basically exists in the underground disco scene in ’80s Athens, and he can’t stop dancing ’cause he’s worried his heart will stop. And it’s lovely. It’s great.”

You won’t find a better endorsement than that, but allow me to elaborate. Imagine Only Lovers Left Alive meets What We Do in the Shadows by way of Yorgos Lanthimos. The quirky 2014 effort follows a vampire vagabond (Vangelis Mourikis) navigating Greek’s sordid nightlife circa 1984 as he dances to stay alive. Not as campy as it sounds, its idiosyncrasies land more in the art-house realm. Stylized visuals, colorful bloodshed, pulsating dance music, and an absurd third-act reveal help the existentialism go down in a mere 74 minutes.


Bloody Birthday

With the recent solar eclipse renewing public interest in the astrological event, Bloody Birthday is ripe for rediscovery. Three children born during an eclipse – Curtis Taylor (Billy Jayne, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose), Debbie Brody (Elizabeth Hoy), and Steven Seton (Andrew Freeman) – begin committing murders on their 10th birthday. Brother and sister duo Joyce (Lori Lethin, Return to Horror High) and Timmy Russell (K.C. Martel, The Amityville Horror) are the only ones privy to their heinous acts.

Bloody Birthday opened in 1981 mere weeks before the release of another attempt to claim the birthday slot on the slasher calendar, Happy Birthday to Me. Director Ed Hunt (The Brain) combines creepy kid tropes that date back to The Bad Seed with slasher conventions recently established by Halloween and Friday the 13th – with a little bit of the former’s suspense and plenty of the latter’s gratuity. The unconventional set up helps it to stand out among a subgenre plagued by banality.


Alien from the Abyss

Starting in the late ’70s and throughout the ’80s, Italy built an enterprise out of shameless rip-offs of hit American movies. While not a blatant mockbuster like Cruel Jaws or Beyond the Door, 1989’s Alien from the Abyss (also known as Alien from the Deep) was inspired by – as you may have guessed from its title – Alien, Aliens, and The Abyss.

After a pair of Greenpeace activists attempt to expose an evil corporation that’s dumping contaminated waste into an active volcano, the environment takes a backseat to survival when an extraterrestrial monster attacks. Character actor Charles Napier (The Silence of the Lambs) co-stars as a callous colonel overseeing the illicit activities.

Director Antonio Margheriti (Yor: The Hunter from the Future, Cannibal Apocalypse) and writer Tito Carpi (Tentacles, Last Cannibal World) take far too long to get to the alien, but once it shows up, it’s non-stop excitement. The creature is largely represented by a Gigeresque pincer claw that reaches into the frame, giving the picture a ’50s creature feature charm, but nothing can prepare you for its full reveal in the finale.


What Is Buried Must Remain

Set against the backdrop of displaced Syrian and Palestinian refugees, What Is Buried Must Remain is a timely found footage hybrid from Lebanon. It centers on a trio of young filmmakers as they make a documentary in a decrepit mansion alleged to be haunted on the outskirts of a refugee camp. Inside, they find the spirits of those who died there, both benevolent and malicious.

It plays like Blair Witch meets The Shining through a cultural lens not often seen in the genre. The first half is presented as found footage (with above-average cinematography) before abruptly weaving in more traditional film coverage. While the tropes are familiar, the film possesses a unique ethos by addressing the Middle East’s plights of the past and the present alike.


Cathy’s Curse

Cathy’s Curse is, to borrow a phrase from its titular creepy kid, an “extra rare piece of shit.” The Exorcist, The Omen, and Carrie spawned countless low-budget knock-offs, but none are as uniquely inept as this 1977 Canuxploitation outing. Falling squarely in the so-bad-it’s-good camp, it’s far more entertaining than The Exorcist: Believer.

To try to make sense of the plot would be futile, but in a nutshell, a young girl named Candy (Randi Allen, in her only acting role) becomes possessed by the vengeful, foul-mouthed spirit of her aunt, destroying the lives of anyone who crosses her path. What ensues is a madcap mélange of possession, telekinesis, teleportation, animal attacks, abandoned plot points, and unhinged filmmaking that must be seen to be believed.


Visit the SCREAMBOX Hidden Gems archives for more recommendations.

Start screaming now with SCREAMBOX on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Prime Video, Roku, YouTube TV, Samsung, Comcast, Cox, and SCREAMBOX.com!

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