It is Alice's birthday and her sorority girlfriends throw her a themed party. Everyone comes as their favorite, sexy character from Wonderland. The Jabberwocky was not invited and brings murder and mayhem to the girls' night out.

I wish this was cool. I love Alice in Wonderland, and I wanted to like this at least a little bit, with the costumes and such. We definitely need a really good horror and Alice combination (remember that awesome video game?).

What we get is boring, low video quality and below average acting. Granted, I have seen much worse acting and and video quality, but at least these were not boring...

Deciding to watch this despite clear and emphatically poor reception felt like consciously punishing myself for the mixed bag represented in other titles I'd chosen in the same night. From the very, very beginning there is an absolute lack of subtlety in the screenplay (weak overall narrative, threadbare scene writing, thin characterizations, hackneyed dialogue),camerawork, direction, editing and transitions, arrangement of scenes, blood effects and gore, costume design, choreography, acting, and music. In every possible way the production feels purely amateurish - a first student film, perhaps, created by barely attentive beginners; a passion project among friends, except with scarcely any passion, fun, or active interest from anyone involved; or a schlocky, low-grade, themed porn flick, except without any nudity.

Considering the dialogue, the other features of filmmaker Dennis Devine, the wardrobe selections generally, and an early scene in which every female character is dressed only in a bikini - the latter comparison seems most apt.

'Alice in Murderland' is pointedly terrible, nearly entirely bereft of all value. There's infinitesimally little praise I can offer, but I find myself surprised that I've any at all. Against all odds, there's a single unexpected turn in the plot. There's an iota of cleverness in the sudden disappearances and reappearances of the "Cheshire Cat," Kat - though the underlying predictability is rotten. The characterizations of "Tweedledum" and "Tweedledee," or Donna and Dee, allow actresses Heath Butler and Jennifer Field to wholly lean into the vapid ignorance of the roles. And the latter lends to the single laugh that the entire movie provided in a small exchange of dialogue: "Where's Donna?" "Glued to the toilet." "Oh. Of course she is."

What's remarkable is that I gather a minor sense that the cast are genuinely capable actresses. Bad acting is one matter; acting under the strict terms and guidance of a director is another. The two are certainly distinct, and I'm inclined to think in this case the latter is true. Moreover, to glance at their collective credits reveals some tawdry nonsense much like Devine's oeuvre, yes, but also a number of recognizable films and series that can't be a mistake. To that point: The only reason I stumbled across this title in the first place was that I greatly admired the performance in the outstanding 2019 short film 'Nova' of Kelly Kula, and in browsing her credits, found she featured here as Kat. Yet suffice to say, 'Alice in Murderland' is a far cry from that fantastic horror short, or pretty much anything else. Devine's writing and direction forces everyone involved into such abjectly blunt, forthright, unsubtle, over the top, tacky performances that it's extremely difficult to truly distinguish, on the basis of this feature alone, who may or may not have real acting skill, were they given opportunity to demonstrate it.

I'll allow this: I don't know if Devine is just that awful of a filmmaker, or if every unseemly flaw of the picture is intentional. Considering how many other movies he's made, I suppose it's hard to think that he altogether doesn't know what he's doing. Yet if the horridly tedious pablum is knowing and willful, making a deliberately rancid movie - job well done, I guess, but why? To what purpose?

There is, I dare say, a tiny modicum of fun to be had in the final length of the feature, and again, there are a few elements that seem marginally worthwhile, at least by comparison. This isn't the absolute worst movie I've ever seen - but it's close enough. Any positivity is overwhelmed and subsumed in the grotesquely dull, possibly premeditated mediocrity that the film otherwise represents. What minuscule value one may find here is not worth sitting through these 90 minutes, especially not with so many other fine movies available to watch. A few pinpricks of light are not remotely enough to redeem the dark void of shallow, uninteresting, and vulgarly, garishly blatant rubbish that is 'Alice in Murderland.'

You've been warned.

So much to hate...so little time.

To be fair...I did like something about the film...the opening credits. Somewhat stylish and well done. Who knew that it would be the high point of the movie? Also...there are also a couple of people in this movie that have acting potential. Unfortunately, even the better actors in this film probably still need to keep going to acting class before they should be allowed in a movie.

As the movie progresses the acting reaches new, lame lows. The over-acting gets really unbearable at times.

And the plot?!? This has to be some sort of a bad joke.

A girl chooses to celebrate her 21st birthday at the same location where her mother was slaughtered on her own 21st birthday. Sounds credible to me.

Right off the bat, the movie says "based on a true story." Uh huh. Sure it was. It could have been worse, I suppose...they could have filmed this 'true story' with an unsteady hand-held camera.

As for the murders, the gore is a bit silly. One man spills his guts out after a single stab. In one especially banal, non-murder scene, a girl gets her butt cheeks glued to a toilet seat, but manages to rip herself free, with the help of someone's GAY UNCLE (they only mention the character is gay 72 times).

The really scary part is the special effects person wanted to be identified in the credits. Why? Who would hire somebody so untalented? We learn who the killers are way too soon and with virtually no dramatic tension. And then the convoluted ending just seems like a parody of a horror film. I mean...gee...what could be scarier than the heroine becoming insane, eh? This is the type of flick that fast forward controls were created for.

As for the folks who gave it a 10....I hope you at least collected some decent money for being part of the production.