Vague Visages’ The Serpent’s Skin review contains minor spoilers. Alice Maio Mackay’s 2025 movie features Alexandra McVicker, Scott Major and Charlotte Chimes. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

At just 21 years old, Alice Maio Mackay has an impressive six films under her belt. The Serpent’s Skin, the transgender Aussie filmmaker’s latest project, shows a remarkable amount of growth from her breakout debut feature, So Vam (2021) — a fun film that’s distractingly rough around the edges. Mackay’s sixth movie boasts some of that same grit, but the filmmaker honed her focus to deliver something far more satisfying and memorable, even if The Serpent’s Skin wears its references — Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), The Craft (1996), Charmed (1998-2006) — on its sleeve.

Focusing once again on a trans protagonist (Alexandra Vicker as Anna), much of The Serpent Skin’s action takes place in “the city” after a brief sojourn to the kind of Podunk town where a young queer kid typically doesn’t survive very long. Anna relocates to her big sister Dakota’s (Charlotte Chimes) charmingly run-down apartment, where she quickly falls into bed with dashing rock star Danny (Jordan Dulieu), and nabs a job at a cool record store run by Buzz (Scott Major — easily the biggest name on the cast). But Anna is plagued by visions of a sexy goth lady conjuring spells who appears at the shop following a violent run-in with a would-be robber.

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Avalon Fast co-stars as the mysterious Gen — a tattoo artist, mystical being and the protagonist’s love interest. Although Anna is initially confused by their first meeting, she experiences a major personal awakening by harnessing her supernatural powers after falling in love with her goth girlfriend. Unfortunately, Gen accidentally conjures a demon while tattooing Danny, turning him into a soul-sucking monster who wastes little time destroying every alt chick in town (alongside a nosy neighbor known for bugging everybody in their apartment building). This may sounds like a lot, but Mackay — who co-wrote The Serpent Skin’s screenplay with Benjamin Pahl Robinson — shows a strong and assured grasp of the material.

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Aaron Schuppan’s saturated cinematography is gorgeous, aided massively by funky color grading, which gives everything an eerie 90s glow. The performances seem miles better than those in So Vam, a film which has a real “go girl, give us nothing” energy (especially when it comes to the stylish but vapid lead vampire), as McVicker, Chimes and Fast imbue their characters with real depth and nuance. McVicker, in particular, skillfully evokes Anna’s fears, insecurities, longing and anger. Chimes is sidelined as the central romance takes off, but she’s still terrific as the worried older sister who nonetheless supports her queer sibling’s journey.

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Fortunately, there’s no big fallout between the two sisters to cynically create tension in The Serpent Skin’s final act. McVicker is a commanding screen presence in the lead role, even though Anna is a relatively quiet and even meek character. Although there’s a moment when she’s forced to clarify her identity — right before getting intimate with Danny, who refreshingly doesn’t care — the protagonist’s most interesting trait isn’t that she’s trans. After all, it’s tough to focus on gender identity when you’re getting to grips with your new powers. Mackay proudly presents her movie, once again, as “a transgender film,” which feels deliberately political in the current climate, but this isn’t explicitly a trans story.

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Rather, The Serpent’s Skin is another entertainingly messy, punk rock genre flick explored through a trans lens. Loaded with actual alternative actors, rather than normies with obviously fake tattoos and body piercings, there’s a delightful scuzziness to the film that puts it in the same league as Joe Begos’ Bliss (2019). That similarly bloody tale of druggy vampirism is also set in a city with darkness lurking around every corner, where nowhere is truly safe. Given that’s how transgender and queer people generally feel just existing in the world right now, putting the power quite literally in a young trans woman’s hands to make it a bit safer is a deceptively subversive idea.

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So Vam was released when Mackay was only 16 years old, so it stands to reason that The Serpent’s Skin would display a certain amount of growth on her part. But even beyond that metric, the filmmaker’s unique voice is potent and incredibly powerful. True, there’s a bit too much music jammed in, and the original score is overpowering at times, which robs the dialogue of its impact and suggests a certain degree of self-consciousness. Likewise, the aforementioned nosy neighbor feels like she belongs in an entirely different movie — one with more of a sense of humor (Mackay’s latest film is played straight, to its betterment). But there’s much more to appreciate, given that So Vam comes across as mostly surface-level and isn’t especially engaging despite its ambition. Both films wrap up in under 90 minutes; however, The Serpent’s Skin is paced more effectively, even if the ending feels slightly rushed.

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The sapphic romance is engagingly portrayed by McVicker and Fast, with woozy close-ups winningly denoting those first flushes of new love. Anna and Gen have a Cherie Currie and Joan Jett kind of vibe, not least because of their opposing color palettes — Anna is blonde and prefers floaty neutrals, Gen has dark, shaggy hair and dresses predominantly in black — which provide a lovely visual language for their differing personality types. And yet, this queer romance isn’t doomed. Anna left the abusive household in which she was raised (her stepfather, who appears only through voiceover narration, is portrayed by horror icon Joe Lynch), so the only real threat to their happiness is Danny, who — to be fair — isn’t trying to be a bad guy. Dulieu starts the movie looking like a non-threatening, less performative Yungblud, but he really sinks his teeth into the darker material once the demon takes hold.

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The VFX, presumably dodgy-looking on purpose to evoke that 90s feel, sometimes let The Serpent’s Skin down, but there’s an eye-catching makeup choice in the final act that makes it all worth it, especially for Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans. There’s a big difference between paying homage to classic horror staples and being derivative, but Mackay’s defiant, distinctive approach ensures her sixth feature never feels like a retread. When one character asks another “what kind of weird?” and they respond with “our kind of weird,” it feels like the purest distillation of her vision. A demonic tattoo is undoubtedly a fresh, new idea in horror, and Mackay has once again managed to do an awful lot with zero money and a ton of determination, which makes The Serpent’s Skin much easier to admire than pick apart.

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Evidently, the Aussie filmmaker is still finding her footing, but watching her evolve over time is genuinely exciting. When comparing The Serpent’s Skin to Mackay’s debut feature, there’s a marked difference in everything from the storytelling to the performances to the entire look of the movie itself. The director’s output might still be a little rough around the edges, but there’s no doubt she’s improving with each new release. Mackay’s sincerity and passion are always front and center, so hopefully fans won’t have to wait too long to see what she does next, which should be yet another step up.

The Serpent’s Skin released theatrically in New York on March 27, 2026 and Los Angeles on April 3, 2026 via Dark Star Pictures.

Joey Keogh (@JoeyLDG) is a writer from Dublin, Ireland with an unhealthy appetite for horror movies and Judge Judy. In stark contrast with every other Irish person ever, she’s straight edge. Hello to Jason Isaacs. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film reviews at Vague Visages.

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