Sunday, June 2, 2013

        In conclusion, the changing of genre or audiences causes an original work to be presented in a new manner. An adaptation is a refreshing way to experience an old story. However, in the process the new work can be interpreted completely differently than the original. Alice in Murderland took the idea of turning Lewis Carroll's novel into a horror movie. The intent was to scare the audience, but in the end it made the audience laugh. One can directly see the caricature and incongruity of Alice in Murderland resulting in a comedic movie that contributes to re-introducing the story of Alice in Wonderland in a funny manner. Alice in Murderland is a perfect example of how an adaptation changes the audience and genre of a story to introduce more people to the story by changing the original work.

Go watch the movie!

  

Work Cited: 

          Alice in Murderland is entertaining because of the characters of the movie are reduced to characters from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Each character in the movie puts on a costume to the respective Alice in Wonderland character that they are pretending to be at the party. Because each character has the same personality as their Alice in Wonderland counter part, the characters of the movie are reduced to being someone in the Alice in Wonderland book. For example, the character named Alice plays Alice and exhibits traits of being scared, concerned about her future, and loss of personality. Tweedledum and Tweedledee are represented by Donna and Dee because they are both stupid, oblivious to the murdering Jabberwocky and do whatever they are told. Characters in the movie are no longer are themselves, but the characters from Alice in Wonderland.One character, the Jabberwocky, is intended to be a ruthless murderer, but becomes a laughing stock every time it enters the camera due to the caricature of the character. The costume which makes up the Jabberwocky is a bird like creature with a huge neck and red hair. The costume is supposed to be scary by trying to exaggerated the creatures features, such as a bird like head and a long neck. However, the rest of the costume is reduced to nothing more than a black shirt that goes to the actors feet. The clash of exaggeration of the characters head and reduction of his body causes one to find the character funny.
        Dennis Devine's attempt at plot development causes some of the scenes and the plot as a whole to be incongruent. While incongruency in a movie usually leaves the audience unhappy, Alice and Murderland's incogruency is entertaining. When Malory, the party planner is going to meet her uncle, she wants him to let her use the glass house for the party she is hosting for Alice. When running into him she see that he is having a debate with her boy friend, Andrew. The mini debate goes on for a minute talking about missing an art class and ends after Andrew tells Malory's uncle he must get a C in the class. Malory's uncle responds with “Are you... threatening me?” in a monotonic voice (Alice in Murderland). Final Malory utilizes one line to ask her uncle about the glass house before the scene ends. The scene was obviously an attempt at plot development, but it has almost nothing to do with the plot of the movie. The result is it clashes with the actual plot. The scene is out of place to such a degree that it is one of the most funny scenes of the movie. Not only do individual scenes have issues, but the plot as a whole is incongruuent. A notable moment was when Kat was talking about how her mother was the one who killed Alice's mother. Kat says her mother told her she killed Alice's mother. In the movie Alice's mother was killed when Alice was one year old. Since Kat is stated to be the same age as Alice, she would have been one year old as well at the time of the killing. It is virtually impossible for Kat to know her mother was the killer via her mother telling her because Kat mentions that her mother killed herself immediately after killing Alice's mom. Kat had no way of knowing that her mother was the killer because she was too young and her mother died before she could have told her. The inconguity between the plot is an example of Bergson's comic techniques which entertains the audience because there is a clash of ideas in the plot.


“ Are you threatening me?” (Alice in murderland).
        Alice in Murderland was funny because it utilized Bergson's comic techniques caricature and incongruity. Alice in Murderland's poor costume design results in the exaggeration of the characters in Alice in Wonderland which is an example of the comic technique caricature. Due to a poor script some of the scenes do not match up and the incongruity is hilarious. Alice in Murderland by Dennis Devine inadvertently utilizes the comic techniques caricature, and incongruity to entertain the audience.

Were there any other comic techniques in the movie? What were they and how did they come about?

        “Once you have killed Alice, you're a killer for life. You're just like me Alice, you're insane.” was the last breath out of the murderous, treacherous, friend that had had killed many of Alice's other friends. (Alice in Murderland). The movie Alice in Murderland by Dennis Devine was produced in 2010 as low budget horror film. Being a horror film, the objective was to target audiences that wanted to be scared, but due to a few faults became comedy. While not a direct adaptation of Lewis Carroll's book Alice in Wonderland the movie utilizes a very similar title, character names and character traits. Even thought the original goal of the movie was to amuse the audience by scaring them, the film amuses the audience by making the audience laugh because of its flaws.


I thought the film was funny because of it's poor production. If you didn't find the movie funny, why wasn't it funny?  
       I stumbled upon the movie Alice in Murderland the other day, has anyone else seen this movie? Alice in Murderland is about a group of friends that hold an Alice in Wonderland themed party for their friend Alice's twenty first birthday. The group of friends have an unwanted guest come to the party. The guest turns out to be a murderous Jabberwocky. Alice and her friends have to figure out who is the Jabberwocky and stop him from killing everyone at the party. Alice and her friends must try to make it out of the wonderland alive and with their heads.


I thought this movie was really funny. Did anyone else like it?