Fantasia XXVIII Review: In CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS, Confronting Holiday Horror With A Fierce Affront!
3 min. read
Here’s another rare venture into horror for this site: A trans thriller about a true crime podcaster who returns to her hometown for the first time since transitioning, only to be brought face to face with a vicious killer on the loose and a police force too incompetent to do something about it.
Indeed, that’s what rising directing talent Alice Maio Mackay proffers in Carnage For Christmas, a horror fable set against a backdrop of malaise-induced Christmas jingles and decour, and a mystique surrounding just who is killing people and why. It’s all prefaced by the tale of a similarly violent revenge crime as narrated by Lola (Jeremy Moineau) whose show is a hit with more people than she realizes. This fact is made clearer as the film progresses, wherein the first hour with Lola’s long-awaited return to the town of Purdan and reunion with sister, Danielle (Dominique Booth), soon results in the start of a grisly bodycount.
No, of course that wasn’t Lola’s doing, but that doesn’t stop the local constables from asking their load of unfair and intrusive questions about her past. Nor does this prevent the sort of unsavory gazes from the incorrigible peers of Lola’s past. The crime eventually pulls the inquisitive podcaster in though, utilizing her mindfulness and self-accumulated expertise to do her own investigative work – work which ultimately turns up gory remains and evidentiary assets faster than the average good-for-nothing flatfoot can take their first step. Alas, the killings continue, and it’s not long until Lola manages to put the pieces together herself, ultimately becoming the killer’s next target. At this rate, next podcast episode will depend on whether or not she can bring the killer to justice, or end up on a page of someone else’s means of audible entertainment.
Carnage For Christmas is only maybe an hour and some change and yet Mackay crams in a ubiquitous and energetic entree of horror delight to serve the masses. In its unraveling, the film also accomplishes an intriguing profiling of the trans experience, one that certainly fuels the story with representation, insight, charm, and the usual assortment of blood and guts to bring some red to the forefront. The kills are presented with a few frenetic cuts but nothing too crazy, and the violence gets pretty damn vivid. One victim is left on display in a viking-style murder with her bones and innards exposed, and one poor soul gets clocked upside the head and scalped with his brain matter exposed.
The latter took me back to one really vivid scene from an old horror sci-fi TV show I saw growing up and this kid had half his face slowly ripped off before the screen cut to black. Dramatic. Mackay’s work here also had some admirable nods to similar story elements seen in Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz, minus the gun battles, action movie one-liners and geriatric fisticuffs.
The film’s final act brings a little fun to the table in a fight scene pitting the killer, against Lola and a few friends that show up at the last minute. I won’t say who won or lost the scrimmage here, but someone here gets tit-slapped by a drag queen. I yelped. Gleefully. Moineau’s performance lends a solid protagonist to the genre in Mackay’s latest crowdpleaser. Horror fans would be wise not to overlook this one.
Carnage For Christmas was reviewed for the 28th Fantasia International Film Festival which runs from July 18 through August 4.
