Alice Maio Mackay is arguably one of contemporary cinema’s hardest working creatives. In the last six years, she has written and shot as many feature films, all of them low-budget genre titles with a focus on queer characters; four of which have played at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival (including last year’s The Serpent Skin).
Mackay’s latest, Our Effed Up World, is something of a departure. It’s still a low-budget film with a talented young cast, yes, but it’s more of a science fiction film than a horror title. But while the genre trappings may differ slightly from the vampires and the witches of her other films, Mackay and her regular co-screenwriter Benjamin Pahl Robinson haven’t completely abandoned one of their defining traits: the (queer) community at the center of the narrative.
Our Effed Up World follows Sheri (Sara Thompson, One of Us Is Lying), a young woman grieving the death of her grandmother Grace (Kerry Armstrong). They were close ever since Sheri and her father moved in at the start of high school, but, with Grace gone, Sheri finds herself increasingly angry at the world.
As her father Hank (Scott Major) withdraws into his work tracking meteorites for the government, Sheri spends her days hanging out with best friend Poppy (Annapurna Sriram, Fucktoys), non-binary video rental store owner Finn (Jess McLeod, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma), and Finn’s co-worker and roommate, Ash (Karis Oka). Oh, and Sheri’s also in a terrible relationship with a dimwit named Harry (Jordan Dulieu, The Serpent’s Skin), who has a great body and poor sexual techniques.
Everything changes when a meteorite lands on the outskirts of town and Harry, dejected after Sheri finally dumps him, is infected by an alien that assimilates him. From there, other people in town are gobbled up, as Sheri, her father, and her friends must find a way to stop the invasion.
Sidebar: as a bonus for attentive audiences, keep an ear out for vocal cameo performances by Hellraiser’s Brandon Flynn and I Saw The TV Glow’s Jack Haven during the extended flashback that explains Hank’s backstory.
The stakes may seem high, but the reality is that outside of a few tense sequences, Our Effed Up World is more of a hang-out movie and character study than a full-blown science fiction film. There are a few FX shots of a green-tentacled meteorite and a humanoid alien creature with a blurred face, but the low budget limits the visuals and the scope of the storytelling.
In general, the sci-fi elements feel a little too familiar, particularly Sheri’s discovery that what remains of Harry (and his affection for her) offers her a measure of protection from the creature. We’ve seen similar developments in other films, and the short runtime (the film barely clocks in at an hour before credits) means the film doesn’t have time to explore its alien aspects in any detail.
Our Effed Up World still works, though. Because of the budget confines and the lack of visual effects, the film wisely keeps the focus on Sheri and her friends as they hang out and get into adventures. What’s impressive is how seamlessly the screenplay unpacks Sheri’s grief and engages in a philosophical debate about what it means to be human amidst lived-in character beats such as Poppy’s concern about Sheri’s anger, Sheri’s attempts to entice her father into conversation using food, and Finn’s financial woes after inheriting a failing business from their uncle.
Mackay and Pahl Robinson’s trademark acerbic dialogue helps this all to go down easily. For example: Sheri describes herself to Harry as “a living fleshlight” after she suffers through a particularly unsatisfying sexual encounter. The quips are particularly applicable to Finn, who is easily the film’s MVP – largely because McLeod gets all of the best lines, but also because the It’s A Wonderful Knife actor knows exactly how to stand out.
All in all, Our Effed up World is almost enough to make you wish that Mackay would dispense with the genre trappings entirely and simply make a fun, queer Mallrats-esque hang-out film. As it stands, the film is fun, breezy, and brief!
Our Effed Up World made its international premiere at the 2026 Fantasia International Film Festival. Release info TBD.
