Fantasia International Film Festival 2024 – Writer/director Alice Maio Mackay is one of the hardest working indie genre filmmakers in the game. Within the last few years, she’s released So Vam, Bad Girl Boogie, and T Blockers. Her latest, Carnage for Christmas, is a grisly and bloody yuletide slasher and a solid entry into the growing queer horror canon.

Mackay penned the script with Benjamin Pahl Robinson, who’s worked with her on several other projects. The film stars Jeremy Moineau as trans true crime podcaster Lola.  The opening minutes set up the premise and circumstances that lead Lola back to her hometown of Purdan, Australia. A fan of the podcast wants to know what drew Lola to true crime. This entails a story about a killer from the 1930s named The Toymaker. He resided in Lola’s hometown and dressed up as Santa and murdered his family, or so the legend goes. When Lola was a kid, the children dared each other to go into The Toymaker’s house. Lola did, and she saw something that she couldn’t shake years later. Hence her love of true crime.

The beginning is an arresting bit of filmmaking, and the legend of The Toymaker is relatable. Everyone had a creepy house in their neighborhood growing up. When Lola does return to her hometown, someone in a Santa outfit starts murdering people. The sequences are gruesome and gory, in true slasher fashion. Yet, like all of Mackay’s films, there’s a lot more going on here. The small town setting works in that it creates conflicts over local politics, drama, gossip, and indifferent or inept police. There’s also the issue of transphobia. However, unlike her younger years, Lola does make friends within the queer community, so the town does show some progress.

Though the film has a decent-sized cast, Lola’s sister, Danielle (Dominique Booth), is one of the standouts, along with Lola’s boyfriend, Charlie (Zarif). Both Danielle and Charlie are determined to help Lola solve the murders, bring the killer to justice, and prevent more bloodshed. That said, it’s really Moineau who shines in this film. Lola is a confident and worthy final girl, and Moineau gives the performance a heck of a lot of grit. It was a great choice for the role of the protagonist.

If I can find any fault with the film, it’s that it’s too short, barely 70 minutes. The pacing moves at break-neck speed. The opening minutes do a nice job establishing the mythos of The Toymaker, but from there, the film feels like it flies. There’s barely enough time to know the characters before they’re picked off. This was true of some of Mackay’s other films too, especially Bad Girl Boogie. In this case, the film also needed slightly more character interactions and world building.

Small gripes aside, overall, Mackay continues to be one of the most interesting indie voices in the horror genre. Carnage for Christmas is a stylish yuletide slasher that’s unabashedly queer.