Official selection
Salem Horror Fest 2024
Director
Alice Maio Mackay
Producer
Alice Maio Mackay
Writer
Alice Maio Mackay, Ben Pahl Robinson
Cast
Zairf ., Dominique Booth, Olivia Deeble, Jeremy Moineau, Tumelo Nthupi
Composer
Alexander Taylor
Editor
Vera Drew
contact
One Manner Productions
Horror cinema’s favourite (and most prolific) ingenue, Alice Maio Mackay, returns to Montreal this summer, with her sixth film, CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS. The 19-year-old filmmaker from Australia has already made waves at Fantasia and beyond with her crowd-pleasing, crowdfunded projects (all her work exists somewhere between no budget and micro-budget). T BLOCKERS was an instant fan favourite and an all-time raucous screening when it played at the 2023 edition of the festival. With CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS, Mackay trades in purple goop and alien parasites for mistletoe and Santa Claus, in this naughty holiday adventure. When true-crime podcaster and sleuth Lola visits her hometown at Christmas for the first time since running away and transitioning, the vengeful ghost of a historical murderer and urban legend seemingly arises to kill again. Lola must solve the case before her community is slaughtered. She’s up against not only a psychotic killer, but a town haunted by secrets.
CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS is not just an ode to Holiday horror classics like SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT and RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE, but a tribute to the rising stars of underground cinema. With guest spots by Betsey Brown (ALL JACKED UP AND FULL OF WORMS) and Zelda Adams (HELLBENDER), as well as Vera Drew (THE PEOPLE’S JOKER) working as an editor, Mackay cements herself as the People’s Princess of a growing movement of dirty, irreverent and transgressive underground cinema. Alice Maio Mackay is part of a growing movement of young trans filmmakers re-imagining genre cinema with fresh eyes, twisting expected tropes into something personal, inventive and boundary-pushing. Less may be more but there’s no accusing Mackay of not embracing maximalism in an otherwise short-running time, with a movie that overflows with wild expressionistic editing, animated sequences, drag queens, psychedelic imagery and slippery one-liners. – Justine Smith
Showings
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Jour de chasse
Annick Blanc
As a bachelor weekend in the woods descends into bloody madness, feisty sex worker Nina must reconsider how far she is willing to go to belong. A drunken fever dream exposing a microcosm of masculinity.
Oddity
Damian McCarthy
A blind medium uncovers the truth behind her sister's death with the help of a frightening wooden mannequin. One of the scariest and most imaginative films you’ll see anywhere this year.
This Man
Tomojiro Amano
Freely adapting a famous urban legend, this could well be the new J-horror gem that rekindles the fervour of moviegoers worldwide. Unsettling, intelligent, shocking, and devilishly entertaining!