For her fifth feature, 20-year-old Australian filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay gifts us Carnage for Christmas. A renegade force in the no-budget genre realm, her previous work has explored demonic cults, ancient parasites, vigilante vampires and Stephen King filtered through a uniquely queer lens.

Maio Mackay’s latest features a supernatural, bloodlusting Santa Claus that small town residents have adopted as part of their folklore. The return of young adults for the holiday season awakens this mythologized entity, though it seems particularly drawn to Lola (newcomer Jeremy Moineau), a true crime podcast host who hates making the annual trek to her hometown. A childhood encounter with one of the spirit’s victims (shown via an early flashback rendered in charming, cartoonish animation) seems to have marked her as a target for revenge all these years later—but Father Christmas doesn’t bank on Lola having acquired investigative prowess since their last encounter.

Aided by a robust network of queer friends—and potential victims—Lola uncovers a local conspiracy steeped in transphobia, rendering a metaphysical boogeyman into a tangible threat that marginalized people are all too familiar with facing.

I spoke with the prolific young filmmaker the day before Carnage for Christmas screened at NYC’s NewFest. Our conversation touches on Maio Mackay’s thoughts on true crime, working with recurring and new cast members alike as well as her collaboration with fellow trans visionary Vera Drew.

Filmmaker: This marks your fifth collaboration with co-writer Benjamin Pahl Robinson. How do you both work to shape a story?

Maio Mackay: I’ve been working with him for almost six years. We did a bunch of short films together, as well. I think we both bring different things to the table and it is 100% about teamwork. Otherwise, I don’t think either of us would get anything done on these films. We’ve never actually met the whole six years [we’ve known each other]. I was doing work experience on a film in Australia, and then someone recommended [that I work with] him, but he had just moved to Argentina. I think the very first thing we did was the Stephen King dollar baby together, which was really fun.

I initially start with a concept, story or theme that I want to develop, at least for our projects. I send him a rough outline, and he comes back with some thoughts. Then we go through a more formal kind of breakdown of plot, characters, et cetera. It’s very back and forth.

Filmmaker: If you’ve never met in person, how did you both get connected?

Maio Mackay: It was literally on Facebook Messenger. As I said, I was doing work experience on a local TV show in South Australia, where I lived at the time. I was looking for someone to collaborate on the Stephen King project, and I think the cinematographer went to uni with [Benjamin] and suggested him, because at the time we both really liked Clive Barker’s work a lot. So we connected on Facebook and have been working together ever since.

Filmmaker: Your film focuses on a true crime podcaster, and it generally seems to have a sympathetic view of this form of media creation and consumption. What were you trying to convey, or maybe subtly critique, about this medium in Carnage for Christmas?

Maio Mackay: I’m gonna be real with you, I’m not a fan of true crime. A lot of it disturbs me or I find it unsettling, although there is definitely a big audience for it. In the context of this film, it was less of a thematic thing we were going for and more so a throwback to Nancy Drew and Columbo. We also didn’t want this character to have those [detective] skills randomly. I wanted there to be a reason for why [Lola] would have this knowledge, so the reason why she is a true crime podcaster is more for the story rather than me exploring and empathizing with that [content].

Filmmaker: This is the first leading role for Jeremy Moineau, who plays Lola with stellar conviction. How did you cast this character and what was the process of tailoring Lola to Jeremy’s sensibility, or vice versa?

Maio Mackay: At the time I was living with one of my best friends, who’s a theater producer. I think the year before we started making this film, there was a big production of Let the Right One In, and there was a list of trans actors they were auditioning in Australia. Australia is quite small, especially [in terms of] having trans actors. I just remember my friend mentioning [Jeremy’s] audition and talking about how cool she was. I remembered that name while writing this film, then I reached out to her and she sent an audition tape of one of the scenes with the detective. Honestly, we didn’t really have to tailor anything to her. Usually there are things, not that we change per se, but cater a little towards [an actor]. But she kind of fit in perfectly with the character. Even now, she still does acting, but she works with The Greens, a very progressive political party. It still really aligns with her character and morals.

Filmmaker: In terms of the overall cast, there are some recurring collaborators as well as new talent. How did you establish an environment on set that allowed everyone to mesh together?

Maio Mackay: It just comes down to the crew and the people I work with. A lot of them have been there since day one. We’re still working with the same actors from the first feature we did, though I’m not going to work with them unless there’s a role that I see fit. But it’s really cool, especially to see Brendan [Cooney], who’s played everything from a police detective to a supportive dad to a drag queen in my earlier shorts. He’s really gone through the whole range of everything, and I think it’s just so cool working with him in so many different ways and seeing what he brings to the roles. Obviously, Jeremy was new to this film. Olivia [Deebo], who plays the podcast host, is a close friend of mine who’d done a Disney film, so I really wanted to work with her for a little bit. Dominique [Booth] was in the film Boogeyman Pop, which is one of the reasons I fell in love with indie film ages ago. It was really cool working with new people and just bringing everyone together.

Filmmaker: Carnage for Christmas also hones in on the tension between city dwellers and small town residents. What made this contrast particularly rife for exploring here, especially via an Australian perspective?

Maio Mackay: Obviously, the town that we set the film in is fictional. We did film in South Australia, which I guess compared to Sydney or Melbourne is a smaller town. There’s a pretty big film business [in South Australia], but it’s much less politically progressive than Sydney and Melbourne in terms of gay and trans rights. Given that we were shooting in Adelaide, it makes sense to have these characters coming home for Christmas to somewhere that’s less politically forward while also dealing with a murder.

Filmmaker: I know you are from Adelaide and now are living in Sydney. How did you rifle through these feelings and emotions through your lead character?

Maio Mackay: It was definitely personal. At the time, I had already moved to Sydney, so I was ironically going back home to film. A lot of these actors are from Sydney, as well, so we all went and made the trek. This film is, I would say, one of my least personal works—at least I’m exploring less personal themes—but returning to a smaller town is definitely big here. You don’t hate the town and you’re coming to it from a place of love, and there are people you love in the town, but it’s still not everything that you hope it is and there’s this really gnarly, disturbing past to it.

Filmmaker: In terms of shooting, are you dressing sets, shooting on location or doing guerilla-style filmmaking?

Maio Mackay: On this one, we were definitely trying to do more asking and less guerrilla-style filmmaking. I think as a team, we’re just a bit tired of that risk. For example, the police station wasn’t a set we built per se, but it was this office block in the city that our production designer [Dominique Keeley] completely rearranged to make it look like a police station. The same thing happened for the historical society. We lost a location very last-minute and ended up filming in a community hall. Our production designer was just able to find all of these antiques and make it work somehow. The creepy house wasn’t just an abandoned house, it was a property a relative had that just hadn’t been redone, which was helpful. So a lot was shot on location but enhanced with production design. We definitely didn’t have the money to build sets, unfortunately.

Filmmaker: Vera Drew, whose brilliant The People’s Joker released earlier this year, cut this project. How did she come on board, and what conversations did you have about the edit?

Maio Mackay: I have admired her work for a long time. I think she’s the coolest. We met at the opening night party of Outfest last year. We talked a little bit beforehand, then both did a cameo in our close mutual friend’s film project. We became really close after that. I didn’t expect her to say yes [to editing this film], I just sent her the script and she really loved it. She felt like it reminded her of Tusk, which is one of my favorite Kevin Smith films and also has a podcast angle. I said I kind of wanted it to be like Malignant in terms of crazy editing, transitions and style. I really wanted it to feel fresh and new. The world is l very colorful, and I wanted it to fit in with soaps, melodrama and like a modern Nancy Drew. I really wanted everything to be hyper-stylized. It was really something special to watch Vera turn what we shot in Adelaide into something really cool and inventive from L.A. through our notes and discussions.

Filmmaker: How long did the editing process take?

Maio Mackay: We shot the footage in August of last year, and I think the film was done in maybe January or February—maybe a little later in terms of post.

Filmmaker: Would just guys just send notes back and forth, or was there ever an opportunity to get together and look at the footage?

Maio Mackay: No, we never got a chance to meet in person after Outfest. The next time I think will be this Friday for a screening. But yeah, it was all virtual.

Filmmaker: Vera is also credited for the film’s VFX work. What aspects of the film did this entail?

Maio Mackay: It was mainly a lot of screen replacement work, especially in terms like the podcast stuff that we shot at two different times. A lot of the transitions as well, like when the sky fades in from the gore, all that kind of stuff. Then there are one or two digital blood splatters when we do like a weird, creepy, Rob Zombie, grindhouse, House of 1000 Corpses kill in that car.

Filmmaker: I also wanted to ask about the animated sequence in the film. How did that arise stylistically as the best way to tell that aspect of the story and what was that collaboration like?

Maio Mackay: When we wrote that, I never imagined an animation style. I kind of wanted it to be a fun little Goonies-like throwback. But when it came time to produce it, I didn’t know the best way to tell [Lola’s] pre-transition story. The character is supposed to be 12 or 13, and obviously there are ways to do that with live action, but I thought it’d be engaging to cut back to animation. I just didn’t know how to go about casting young children as these established characters, especially in trans roles. I got to work with [A. Lam], this cool, trans artist that I actually went to high school with. We were in a book club ages ago, then she graduated and I didn’t see her for a while. We reconnected and she got to work on this, which was a really cool experience.

Filmmaker: I read that you’re working with Vera as co-producers on a film written by Cassie Hamilton, star of your previous feature Satranic Panic. Are there any updates you’re able to share on that front?

Maio Mackay: It’s a slow process. It is an animated and crazy rom-com with musical elements. It’s like early John Waters.

There’s also another new project that I’m making that Vera is editing as well, which is cool. It’s a supernatural romance, a little bit witchy. It’s definitely the darkest and most mature film I’ve done to date. It’s a lot less crazy in terms of melodrama and editing, it’s a bit more grounded. The inspiration we talked about was Twixt, the Francis Ford Coppola film.