Review by buffyphreak

I, too, saw this movie at the Sidewalk Film Festival last night. Although parts of "Alice" were confusing and/or long-winded, there were several great scenes and memorable performances by the actors (some professional, some not) overall. The girl who played Alice (Maggie... Henry? God, I suck for already forgetting that. Forgive me.) was particularly convincing in a role that had to be difficult to play (her basic storyline was to be confused/disoriented for the majority of the movie; I'm certainly not an actor, but that seems like it would be one of the more difficult emotions to play). The story suffered in spots because some scenes ran a bit long or were confusing, to me, anyway. There was a bit of frenetic energy that was difficult to follow.

That being said, the production values on this movie were amazing; I can't believe that the shooting schedule was only 16 days (this was revealed at the filmmakers' Q and A session after the film). I would have thought that just securing the locations would have made that kind of schedule impossible, but I was wrong.

I was the most excited by the special effects in "Alice", which were better than many studio films I've seen this year. I couldn't find a bad effects shot in this movie (and there were MANY effects shots). I was very impressed that the screenwriter/director Robb Rugan did most or all of the effects himself. This movie obviously spent a LOT of time in post-production. The music was also extremely impressive, and entirely original by one person. When I heard the music in the trailer, I thought they had temped it from another soundtrack because it was so good, but all of the music in "Alice" was composed entirely by Jim Robeson, who is local. A lot of talent in the Birmingham area was at play here.