Musical horror comedies have long been a place to explore gender-expansive themes. Obviously, one of the most famous is the 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but there have also been cases made for Little Shop of Horrors to be a trans allegory. Genre films are meant to push boundaries, so seeing them used to examine queer stories makes sense. Australian filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay, a trans woman herself, has used horror and comedy together to elevate trans stories through her latest film, Satranic Panic.
Aria (Cassie Hamilton) and Jay (Zarif) are mourning the loss of Max (Sebastian Grech), Aria’s best friend and Jay’s partner. Max’s murder seems to be tied to a satanic cult. Aria is able to sense these demons, so she and Jay go on a road trip to try to figure out who killed their friend. Along the way, they meet Nell (Lisa Fant), a woman who shares Aria’s ability to sniff out demons and who develops a crush on Aria.
But in the background is the nefarious Dr. Fenway (Chris Asimos), an endocrinologist who experiments with his trans patients and who seems to be hiding his own dark secrets. As Aria, Jay, and Nell make their way across the countryside of Australia, they must try to discover what Dr. Fenway is hiding and how they can avenge their murdered friend.
Campy is a word that gets thrown around a lot, especially in the horror genre, but Satranic Panic is peak camp. The combination of horror, drag, comedy, and musical elements all come together to create something that is exaggerated and playful, even in the midst of a significant loss for the main characters. This movie is campy.
This movie also self-describes as a no-budget film, and there are places where that shows. The movie starts out with Aria destroying a demon, and the effects definitely leave something to be desired. Fortunately, Maio Mckay understands the limitations that she has and works with them so that very little is noticeably low-budget. The use of edits and cut-aways allows the majority of the horror elements to work without having something that comes across as clunky. The budget doesn’t get in the way of one being able to stay in the story that she is spinning.
It is clear that the performers are having a good time. Asimos gives a fully unhinged performance as Dr. Fenway and it is so much fun to watch. Fanto is wonderful as the love interest and really sells all of the twists and turns that her character goes through.
Zarif is an interesting character, and of all the performances, this was the one that worked the least. Outside of their brief scenes with Max, their reactions never quite seem to fit what is going on.
Hamilton, on the other hand, does an incredible job. She blends humor and pathos brilliantly and breathes so much life into Aria. There is less singing than I would hope for a horror musical, but her singing is fantastic and absolutely elevates those scenes, particularly in the finale.
The writing in this is really solid. The trio of Maio Mckay, Hamilton, and Benjamin Pahl Robinson have a clear, unified voice, and the story they lay out is clever, funny, and cohesive. If you go into this movie looking for something truly scary, that probably won’t happen, but if you recognize it as a horror comedy, it works incredibly well.
What is impressive, however, is that as campy and silly as this movie is, it still manages to have some much deeper themes. It touches on the amount of trust that trans people have to place in their doctors to allow them to live the lives they want. It shows the way that queer people, generally and trans people specifically, often must rely more on their found family than on the one they are born into. And it looks rather unflinchingly at the way that people in the LGBTQIA+ community often are left mourning for those who don’t make it.
At its heart, Satranic Panic is a film about loss. The loss of a friend. The loss of a partner. The loss of another trans person to bigotry. The loss of family to zealotry.
But it doesn’t stop there. It is also a film about discovery. Discovering strength you didn’t know you had. Discovering a new family of your own choosing. Discovering love and friendship in places that you didn’t expect. If you have to kill a few demons along the way, so be it.
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