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Neon Drenched, Demon Possessed, and Emotionally Raw

The Serpent's Skin

MOVIE REVIEW
The Serpent's Skin

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Genre: Horror, Supernatural Romance
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 23m
Director(s): Alice Maio Mackay
Writer(s): Alice Maio Mackay
Cast: Alexandra McVicker, Avalon Fast, Jordan Dulieu, Charlotte Chimes, Scott Major, Lewi Dawson, Alyssa Peters
Where to Watch: shown at the 2025 Fantasia Film Festival


RAVING REVIEW: Some horror films scream; this one snarls. THE SERPENT’S SKIN might clock in at just over 80 minutes, but it packs in enough fury, vulnerability, and rebellion to fill an entire franchise. Alice Maio Mackay’s sixth feature is her most assured and emotionally volatile work yet (and that’s saying something because she has one hell of a filmography)—a supernatural queer horror tale that wields witchcraft, body horror, and heartbreak with equal urgency. It’s brutal, funny, and unmistakably punk in spirit, refusing to flatten its characters into metaphors or reduce their trauma to exposition.


Alexandra McVicker stars as Anna, a trans twentysomething who finally escapes her oppressive hometown, landing in a new space that should offer freedom, but instead serves up a fresh dose of supernatural chaos. She quickly falls into a relationship with Gen (played with caustic charm by Avalon Fast), a goth tattoo artist whose ritualistic ink session on a mutual friend accidentally unleashes a demon. As bodies drop and relationships unravel, Anna and Gen must embrace their power, not just as witches, but as queer women navigating the complexities of rage, shame, and survival.

Mackay returns here not just with her signature neon-soaked visuals and grunge-infused soundscape, but with a matured narrative voice. There’s a clear evolution from her earlier work, like CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS and SO VAM. THE SERPENT’S SKIN retains her defiant edge while digging deeper into the fallout of transphobia, desire, and self-loathing. Rather than explaining queerness through a lens for cisgender viewers, the film leans hard into its queerness—thorny, messy, defiant, and radiant.

The film’s aesthetic is an aggressive love letter to 2000s teen horror. Think THE CRAFT, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, and even CHARMED—but through the lens of the queer kids those shows didn’t know how to write. Yet THE SERPENT’S SKIN never coasts on nostalgia. Its reverence for those inspirations becomes a launching pad for something that feels entirely of the moment, where gender isn’t just a theme, but a battleground.

Editor Vera Drew (THE PEOPLE’S JOKER) brings a raw energy to the film’s flow, often heightening the unease through jagged cuts and dreamlike montages. Her work amplifies the film’s disjointed emotional state, where relationships shift from tender to terrifying in the blink of an eye.

What also sets THE SERPENT'S SKIN apart is its willingness to blur genre boundaries without losing focus. While it's steeped in horror aesthetics, Mackay’s film also functions as a deeply felt queer love story, one that explores intimacy between trans women without sensationalism or restraint. The demon may be the external threat, but the emotional stakes come from the vulnerability required to trust someone after a lifetime of betrayal. Mackay understands that real terror doesn’t always come with claws—it comes with letting your guard down.

But it’s Mackay’s writing that hits the hardest. The dialogue walks a razor-thin line between scathing and intimate. Characters lash out, connect, push each other away, and claw their way back. It’s not just about defeating a monster—it’s about what it means to let someone love you when you’ve spent your whole life being told you’re unlovable.

McVicker delivers a breakout performance as Anna, grounding the film’s high-concept horror with a performance that’s aching and angry in equal measure. Her chemistry with Fast is electric, shifting from flirtation to grief to defiance without ever feeling forced. Jordan Dulieu gives a uniquely uncomfortable turn as Danny, the sensitive musician who becomes an unwilling host for the film’s parasite. Scott Major and Charlotte Chimes round out a supporting cast that leans into the film’s extremes—sometimes absurd, often sharp, never hollow.

The horror elements are visceral without feeling gratuitous. THE SERPENT’S SKIN doesn’t rely on jump scares or gore for shock—it prefers a slow rot, a creeping dread that builds as Anna and Gen realize that their enemy might not be a beast at all, but something much harder to exorcise: the internalized pain of growing up in a world that feared and rejected them.

Mackay continues her streak of building films with and for a trans audience—not through glossy representation, but through authentic, unapologetic storytelling. She collaborates with a team of queer artists whose fingerprints are all over this project, from Louise Weard’s producing to Vera Drew’s editing. The result is a film that feels lived-in and unfiltered, as if it were made not just by people who have seen the darkness, but by those who have been shaped by it. Some films ask you to come along for the ride. This one dares you to jump into the fire.

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[photo courtesy of DARKSTAR PICTURES]

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Chris Jones
Entertainment Editor

Chris Jones, from Washington, Illinois, is the Mail Entertainment Editor covering Movies, Television, Books, and Music topics. He is the owner, writer, and editor of Overly Honest Reviews.