Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2023: Filmmaking phenom Alice Maio Mackay’s ‘T-BLOCKERS’ is an invasion allegory with a queer cast and crew that is sickening in the best way possible.

T-BLOCKERS

Award-winning trans filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay brings her buzzy genre mashup T-BLOCKERS to the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2023. Part queer coming-of-age and part splatterfest, Lauren Last plays Sophie, a filmmaker whose horrible blind date leads her to vigilante killings to prevent hate crimes. Oh, and there are aliens involved. Sophie realizes she is the only one who can sense a body-snatching entity that targets alt-right creeps. So obviously, she and her group of friends must hunt them down and destroy them in the name of their queer community and for the love of cinema. Duh.

Lewi Dawson plays Spencer, Sophie’s best friend and colleague. They are undeniably fantastic in this role. Stanley Browning is Adam, blind date and lead carrier of the infected alien hate worm. Etcetera Etcetera is our hostess with the mostess and hypnotizes with her spooky charm. Lauren Last gives us everything we need to feel grounded, permitting us to laugh at the premise. I would love to see her in more stories. I would welcome a sequel about Spencer and Sophie’s forthcoming shenanigans.

2023 has been a step in the right direction for trans, queer, and nonbinary representation with films like The People’s Joker, Something You Said Last Night, Monica, Theater Camp, My Animal, Barbie, and the upcoming The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. T-BLOCKERS joins the ranks of engaging storytelling that crosses genres and excites. The neon lighting and campy gore have all the markings of Midnight cult classic indies. The J. K. Rowling joke was perfection. T-BLOCKERS is an allegory for the homophobic antitrans movement and their evil online cultlike behavior. It’s a creative call to activism and self-acceptance told through a B-horror-inspired lens. Be prepared to rock out to one hell of a battle cry song and to stand up and cheer for the final scene.


BROOKLYN HORROR FILM FESTIVAL 2023