Carnage for Christmas (2024)

I think the most immediate thing you need to know about this movie before deciding whether to watch it or not is that writer/director Alice Maio Mackay is currently twenty years old, and this is not remotely her first movie. The fact she's making anything at that age, let alone horror films receiving relatively wide distribution, critical attention, and a growing fan base represents an awesome achievement, even before factoring in the fact this is a competently directed genre movie. However, that does mean we're talking about a microbudget independent production lacking the resources of a major studio. The narrative also stumbles at times... just not anywhere near as many times as you'd expect from something written and directed by a twenty-year-old.

I wanted to open with that to explain why this is going to be tough to review. Compared against most low-budget independent films I've seen, Carnage for Christmas feels professional. But compared against, say, a five- or ten-million dollar Blumhouse production, the lack of resources becomes apparent. Complicating matters is the fact that the areas where it's able to shine (Jeremy Moineau's lead performance, gore effects, stylistic lighting and cinematography, and some great editing by Vera Drew) sort of highlight the areas where this falls short (a few minor characters feel as though they were likely sourced from the filmmaker's friends or family, and the sets serve as constant reminders of the production's limitations).

I'm not focusing on all this to criticize, but rather to set the right expectations. If you go into this expecting it to look like the usual studio releases, you're going to be disappointed. If you approach this as something made with the time constraints and budget of a student film (written and directed by someone younger than most film students attempting a feature, no less), it's a miraculous achievement. I wouldn't say I enjoyed this (I'm not a huge fan of slashers, and the production values certainly took their toll), but this left me with the impression Mackay is worth paying attention to as a filmmaker.

So with all that out of the way, let's talk about the movie. The title screen lays it out pretty clearly when the title appears in stylized, bloody text reminiscent of '70s horror, with the tagline, "A transgender holiday film by Alice Maio Mackay." This is a detective story/slasher about the experience of being undervalued, hated, and/or fetishized due to gender identity, coupled with a sort of rebellious refusal to be defined or limited by society.

The movie's lead is Lola (played by Jeremy Moineau), a true crime podcaster returning to her hometown for Christmas. This is the first time she's been back since coming out as trans and is understandably stressed. In addition, she has a background with the town's urban legend surrounding a story about the ghost of a killer known as the Toymaker.

Soon after returning, she finds herself connected to a series of brutal murders primarily targeting trans and queer characters being carried out by a man adopting the Toymaker identity and wearing an impressively creepy Santa outfit (seriously: kudos to Mackay and crew for pulling these visuals off on a shoestring budget). The police quickly label her a suspect and tell her not to investigate, but - seeing as she's a true crime podcaster - she ignores them. Good thing, too, since we'll eventually learn the police chief has been covering up the actual killer, a childhood friend of Lola's who has a crush on her.

The villains' motives are actually a little convoluted. The killer is related to the police chief, who's covering this up both to protect his nephew and to prevent the fallout from tanking a massive land deal his rich family is involved in. The killer, meanwhile, is committing the murders both out of sexual obsession with transwomen and in order to popularize the urban legend of the Toymaker in the hopes of opening a museum around the concept. You can understand why Mackay wanted to weave in both story and thematic elements, but movies should probably be more streamlined (particularly ones this short - Carnage for Christmas clocks in at just under an hour and ten minutes).

Despite the killer Santa motif and heavy influence from slashers, this is structured more like a detective story. The actual number of killings is relatively low and spread out, the existence of the killer is well established, and the movie plays out as a whodunit more than an escalating body count. Hell, the movie introduces a number of supporting characters who'd typically be killed one by one in a slasher, only for the majority to not only survive but show up in the last act to help beat the crap out of the killer (literally, in fact).

In part, this is because the movie is meant to be optimistic, rather than depressing. The genre is used as a metaphor for the way the world views the trans community, and the movie refuses to accept that victimization, instead providing a resolution in which the community's ties prevail. Depending on how attached you are to slasher tropes, you'll either see this as an underwhelming third act or a powerful statement.

Tonally, the movie embraces camp, both in how it's written and acted. The dialogue is intentionally on-the-nose, and the performances are exaggerated. Likewise, the film makes heavy use of unnatural light (for example, vibrant colors lighting characters at night in the woods). I'm of the opinion this was a good choice - having seen a number of low-budget horror movies now, stylization tends to be more effective at covering for a lack of resources, as long as the filmmakers are capable of incorporating style and tone. And, to her credit, Mackay pulls this off. Same goes for Drew's editing.

All things considered, Carnage for Christmas is an incredibly impressive film made by a director with a sophisticated understanding of both the genre and medium. These really aren't the kind of shots you expect to see from a twenty-year-old filmmaker. But impressive in context isn't the same as enjoyable out of context: for all the talent on display, this is still a movie being put together without the benefits or resources of a big (or even small) studio in a genre where it's virtually impossible to overcome limitations of that magnitude.

This is worth watching for anyone interested in Mackay as an up-and-coming filmmaker, fans of low budget production, and anyone looking for trans representation in this genre. However, I expect most mainstream horror fans used to more polished movies will find the limitations here distracting.