It was a terrible year for trans rights, but it was a great year for trans cinema. If that’s not a chilling reminder of media representation’s political limits, I’m not sure what is. But seeing a film in person encourages a sense of communion that streaming never will, and anything is possible when we’re able to see one another and grow bonds from shared passions that prove strong enough to change the world beyond, say, a movie theater. That’s why you should mark your calendar for Alice Maio Mackay’s Carnage for Christmas.
Mackay is a 20-year-old Australian filmmaker who makes horror movies for people who grew up watching Disney’s Shake It Up but are gay and take drugs now. Earlier this year, her campy, zombie–adjacent feature T-Blockers set the Internet ablaze with its parasite-hunting queer girl gang and generous use of bisexual lighting. Now she’s releasing a slasher movie that follows a trans true-crime podcaster as she returns home for the holidays, where there’s a murderer dressed as Santa on the loose. For my taste, the movie is a little too on the nose about who’s good and why; it’s all the tropes of a slasher movie satisfied by characters who feel like hollow representations of various factions of the digital culture wars. There’s no nuance or real elements of tension or surprise. But it’s fun in that it’s such obvious wish fulfillment—trans woman returns to small-minded hometown, is hotter and more successful than everyone else, saves the day because police are useless—that it goes down like a slice of holiday pie.
This time of year can be fraught for many of us in the LGBTQ+ community. (I myself am mostly estranged from my family and have not been back to my hometown in years.) We lean on chosen family to get us through—and maybe escapist fantasies too, like seeing a TERF murdered instead of the typical “woman who enjoyed sex too much.” Trans people can have some dead TERFs this year, as a treat. The screening will be presented by the film’s editor, Vera Drew, better known as director of The People’s Joker (2022), which will be screening at the Music Box Theatre on 35 mm two days following the local Carnage for Christmas screening. Drew will be kicking it off with her first annual Musical Christmas Remix Tribute to Blood and Sex. On Twitter, she promised her introduction would be “one of the most sacrilegious and erotic videos in the history of cinema.” Carnage for Christmas at Facets will be a night of Olive Garden proportions—a neverending pasta bowl of gay fan service—because when you’re at the trans movie screening, you’re family. 70 min.
Wide release on VOD, screening Thu 11/21, 9 PM, with film editor Vera Drew in attendance, Facets, 1517 W. Fullerton, $12 general admission, $10 Facets members and students, facets.org/programs/vera-drew-presents-carnage-for-christmas
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