At just 21 years old, trans Australian filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay has churned out four shorts and six feature films. Her prolificacy is testament to both her uncommon artistry as much as to her commitment to a distinctly queer lens, which allows her to create with abandon. In essence, her admirably lo-fi films are hang-outs disguised as horror, using the genre’s trappings to explore trans identity. Through horror, Mackay’s films explore how transness is perceived, within and without the community — and how that perception often leads to violence.
Mackay’s latest, The Serpent’s Skin, follows a familiar pattern for the young auteur. Announcing itself right away as “a transgender film,” there are no misconceptions here about who Mackay is, nor for whom she speaks. Edited by fellow trans alt director Vera Drew, whose The People’s Joker seemingly and single-handedly broke festival conventions, The Serpent’s Skin is delivered both fast and patiently, allowing its characters to breathe while also accommodating for the fierceness of life lived on the margins of heteronormative society.
Anna (Alexandra McVicker, who turns in a gorgeously personal performance), has just decamped to Adelaide, where her sister Dakota (Charlotte Chimes) has been living in a small apartment. Her parents are not seen, but heard, in agitated voices, arguing over their daughter’s supposedly wayward ways, and she is more or less forced to leave.
Now in Australia, Anna meets Dakota’s neighbor Danny (Jordan Dulieu), a tattooed cisgender bad boy whose black floppy hair and painted nails seem out of time. The two are quick to fall into bed with each other, and Anna seems charmed by his edge as much as by his seeming allyship, even if the phrase “that’s fine” upon hearing of Anna’s gender is wanting.
Soon after, Anna stumbles into a record shop owned by Buzz (Scott Major), who is happy to give her a job. On her first day there, a knife-wielding thief barges in, knocking Anna to the ground, where she bloodies her head. But Anna recovers, and when she stands, a rush of neon pink floods her face as she uses her mind to implode the thief from the inside. He rushes out with blood oozing out of his eyes and mouth.
The strange, supernatural quality of her counter-attack attracts Gen (fellow director Avalon Fast), who approaches Anna with the cryptic suggestion that she has come here, to this place, to find Anna, because they are the same. She explains to Anna that what happened in the store was a “defense mechanism” called “popping,” and that the excessive use of it could be dangerous. But Anna isn’t even sure how she summoned this inner power, and Gen suggests she teach her, in an exchange that is at once sensual and tense.
The Serpent’s Skin Is A Masterpiece Of Queer Horror
Of its many admirable qualities, The Serpent’s Skin is especially refreshing in its direct approach to queer and trans sex. There are several scenes of intimacy between a variety of partners, and the film’s eroticism is in service of highlighting how love can be both a physical meeting and an intellectual connection. Though the movie does have a clearly structured horror narrative involving vampirism and something akin to satanism, it is much more of a warm and honest portrait of queerness in the face of danger.
Mackay seems to be taking the suggestion that trans people are “magic” literally, situating her main characters as part of the line of history that has castigated women and non-conformists as “witches.” She balances a projection of trans joy with a genuine rage at the world: “We’re still in hiding, as if the witch hunts are still onto us,” says Gen one night, to which Anna responds, “They are. They’ve just changed their names.” Mackay understands and astutely captures what it feels like to be truly seen by someone who understands you. It is a feeling like having powers unleashed.
Gen shows Anna how to use her powers with more control, like any good superhero training montage, during which Anna forces a piece of TERF propaganda to spontaneously combust. In another scene, she and Gen successfully stop a would-be rapist in an alley. But along the way of this sapphic, supernatural journey, a tattoo of an ouroboros on Danny’s neck begins to take control of him, turning him into a raping succubus. As Gen and Anna race to stop Danny from wreaking more havoc on their communities, Mackay points us to the inherent danger felt by queer women among cisgender men.
Mackay has spoken of her influence from Gregg Araki, the filmmaker of the New Queer Cinema, whose early career was similarly marked by its low-budget aesthetic. But Mackay has very much established herself as an heir apparent for the flock of trans filmmakers who are making their way into institutions that have historically overlooked them.
The Serpent’s Skin is visually resplendent, clad as it is in a television-like glow of ethereal color patterns; her compositions are often striking, intimate, and keen in their sensuality. It’s a breathtaking film from a new visionary of the queer indie scene. Like Anna, Mackay is bursting with a power she is learning to control with fierce aplomb.
The Serpent’s Skin screened at the 2025 Beyond Fest.
- Release Date
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June 22, 2025
- Runtime
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83 minutes
- Director
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Alice Maio Mackay
- Writers
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Alice Maio Mackay, Ben Pahl Robinson
- Producers
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Louise Weard
