Alien Horror With Heartache

Read Time:6 Minute, 7 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Our Effed Up World
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Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction, LGBTQIA2S+
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 7m
Director(s): Alice Maio Mackay
Writer(s): Alice Maio Mackay, Benjamin Pahl Robinson
Cast: Sara Thompson, Annapurna Sriram, Jess McLeod, Scott Major, Brandon Flynn, Jordan Dulieu, Jack Haven, Leela Varghese, Tommy Dorfman, Chris Gun
Where to Watch: shown at the 2026 Fantasia Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: OUR EFFED UP WORLD has the nerve to look at an alien invasion and ask whether the end of everything might arrive at an inconvenient emotional time. That’s funnier than it sounds, sadder than expected, and exactly the kind of contradiction Alice Maio Mackay chases in their productions. The movie has monsters from beyond the stars, goofy genre ethics, bursts of attitude, and a title that mirrors the world we live in, all too well! Underneath all of that, it’s really about grief making the world feel optional.

Sheri, played by Sara Thompson, isn’t in a great place. The death of her grandmother has left her raw, angry, numb, and detached in the way grief can make people seem too emotional and not emotional enough. Her biggest problem should be figuring out how to move forward. Instead, a mysterious entity crashes in the woods, and she and her friends are suddenly caught between collapse and an intergalactic hunger with designs on Earth. The movie doesn’t separate those predicaments. It makes the alien threat feel like an extension of Sheri’s exhausted state of mind. Something has landed, something is spreading, and the person who might need to respond is already tired of being alive inside a world that keeps taking people away.

Mackay and co-writer Benjamin Pahl Robinson lean into that mismatch. The film isn’t built like a traditional invasion thriller where everyone understands the stakes and starts making smart decisions. These characters are weird, distracted, young, hurting, horny, annoyed, affectionate, and occasionally a little useless. That’s part of why this works. OUR EFFED UP WORLD gets a lot of mileage from the idea that regular people probably wouldn’t respond to cosmic danger with heroic urgency. Some would panic. Some would joke. Some would complain. Some would need to process their own relationship drama before dealing with the creature in the woods.

That gives the film personality, especially when Sheri’s circle comes into focus. Annapurna Sriram as Poppy and Jess McLeod as Finn help give the movie its vibes and energy, which is one of its stronger elements. Their scenes together have a quality that keeps the film from becoming only a collection of references and splatter-adjacent ideas. The video-store setting adds to that, not just as nostalgia bait, but as a place where people who feel out of step with the rest of the world can gather and make their own culture. Movies, tapes, jokes, friendship, bad decisions, and survival planning all blend until the space becomes a bunker against both loneliness and apocalypse.

Sara Thompson gives Sheri a thorny emotional center. She’s not written as an easy person to root for along the entire story, which is the perfect approach. Grief can make people selfish, mean, funny at the wrong times, and weirdly casual about danger. Thompson lets Sheri sit inside that. The character’s nihilism doesn’t feel like a cool pose as much as a bruise she keeps pressing to see if it still hurts. The film works best when it lets that pain collide with its more absurd instincts. A world-ending alien threat should make life feel valuable, yet Sheri’s question is closer to, why save a world that already feels broken?

Scott Major gives Hank, Sheri’s father, a warmer and more connected presence. His attachment to astronomy gives the sci-fi elements a small but useful foundation in curiosity and knowledge, while his relationship with Sheri gives the story a sense of history. The film doesn’t overplay the family material. At 67 minutes, OUR EFFED UP WORLD moves quickly, sometimes too quickly for its own ambitions. Certain ideas have more intensity, while others feel rushed through before they’ve had time to sting.

That’s the film’s biggest issue. Mackay has a distinct voice, and this movie has no shortage of personality, but the structure can feel uneven. The alien invasion has moments of real fun and menace, yet the threat doesn’t always build with enough pressure. Some scenes feel as though the movie is more interested in the metaphor than in the mechanics of the danger, which is understandable. Flashbacks and tonal detours occasionally interrupt the forward motion rather than focus it. The film is short enough that none of this becomes fatal, but it does keep OUR EFFED UP WORLD from hitting as hard as it could.

The cast helps keep the material alive. Brandon Flynn, Jordan Dulieu, Jack Haven, Leela Varghese, Tommy Dorfman, and Chris Gun round out a world that feels bigger than the runtime allows, with some voices and appearances leaving a stronger impression than others. Although that makes it feel authentic, because not everyone can be in focus. The movie’s strongest relationships remain Sheri and the people closest to her, especially when the film remembers that friendship can be just as important to survival as weapons, plans, or scientific explanations.

OUR EFFED UP WORLD is a scrappy queer sci-fi horror film about trying to care when caring feels impossible. It’s silly, wounded, colorful, uneven, and sincere. The alien-invasion story may not always satisfy on a purely genre level, but the grief running beneath it gives the movie something more personal to hold on to. By the end, the title feels less like a joke and more like a shrug from someone who has seen too much but hasn’t completely given up. The world is effed up. The movie knows that. The better question is whether Sheri, her friends, and maybe the rest of us can find a reason to keep fighting for it anyway.

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