Fantasia 2025: 'The Serpent's Skin' Movie Review

When Anna (Alexandra McVicker), a young trans woman, leaves her shitty home town to start fresh, she learns you can run from your past, but you can’t get away from yourself, and finds plenty of new messes in the big city. Like vampires. 21-year-old filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay’s sixth feature, The Serpent’s Skin, uses this familiar premise as a jumping off point to do something a bit different.

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Call it a departure, evolution, or whatever you like, Skin is more serious in tone, lacking the sharp snark and camp that fills Mackay’s previous films. (It’s there, but not as prevalent.) But don’t worry, this is still lo-fi, punk as fuck, and unabashedly queer and horny—unmistakably hers in other words. There’s plenty of goopy blood and gore as the film channels Rosemary’s Baby, Carrie, Buffy, and more.

 

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