Interviews
Interview with ‘All Jacked Up And Full of Worms’ director Alex Phillips
All Jacked up and Full of Worms showed this year at Brooklyn Horror Film Fest under its “Head Trip” category. I genuinely can’t think of a better way to describe this movie. It was raunchy and disgusting, so definitely not for the faint of heart. BUT I’m always here for some good body horror, and All Jacked up and Full of Worms did not disappoint on that front.
One thing that I liked about All Jacked up and Full of Worms is that it often follows dream logic. Things don’t always seem to make logical sense, and the film moves from one sequence to another without fully explaining how we got there. I think this works well for a film in which worms are taken to the same effect as an ecstatic hallucinogen, or some other wild drug.
I was able to chat with writer/director, Alex Phillips, and special worm effects artist, Ben Gojer after the screening to get a peak behind the curtain.
Bash: Can you tell me about the meaning behind All Jacked Up and Full of Worms?
Alex: “It’s about being crazy and looking for love and meaning in a world where there’s a lot of different ways to replace that sense of love and meaning – drugs, religion, sex, or violence. And then also the terror that comes with confronting yourself and confronting the world around you.”
Bash: I feel like the dream logic fits well with the film’s subject matter. Can you tell me how you decided on utilizing it in the movie?
Alex: There’s an intellectual reason behind it, but also a very literal one. This is the way that I write, and the way that I want to tell stories. I don’t try to filter it through any top top-down structure until after I’ve conceived of the idea or written the script. The dream logic comes from wanting to convey raw emotions and feelings, and turn it into a narrative that still has a throughline and an upward trajectory and still has a resolution. I think it also mirrors the experience of living through certain traumas where experiences are condensed in time and space and there’s a rhyme to the way you experience the world.”
Bash: “There’s a lot of really great surrealist artists out there. Where do you draw inspiration from?”
Alex: “I really borrowed a lot conceptually from the Cronenberg adaptation of Naked Lunch. I found the text that I had written had a lot of rhyme in terms of content. And turning something that’s crazy into a plot structure is something he can do. In writing you can be more abstract, but in film you do need more of a beginning, middle, and end. So I was my own Burroughs and Cronenberg for better or for worse, to translate my own automatic writing and turn it into something that makes sense.”
Bash: The characters have their own monologues that get repeated throughout the film. I’m really interested in Benny and his approach to queerness. What was the purpose of his monologue?
Alex: “I wanted to approach that monologue and also that character from how a dumb mammal of a man would feel around, blindly confronting his desires and landing at an openness that is actually almost progressive, but also comically stunted. I see him as having broken down the walls of right and wrong by ramming his stupid head against them, and by reluctantly accepting himself he can therefore understand how other people might also have a similar interiority. It’s not in a way to validate any of his desires, but there’s a real rawness and openness to experience.
Bash: All Jacked Up and Full of Worms has some pretty sexually explicit moments. What’s your purpose for showing this on film?
Alex: “I want to be sex-positive and represent desires, good and bad, on film. For the challenging moments, we have literal distance from the bad stuff. It’s a performance, it’s fiction, and it’s on a screen. There should always be freedom to play with transgression in art. That’s why art exists, to explore the depths of human experience. If you don’t want to engage with the film you don’t have to. I’m confident in my relationships with the actors and also what they’ve consented to do. They were down to be naked on film, and were down for the sexually explicit moments. I wanted to show that in a way that is uncanny, and blatantly horny, and run it up against horror to discuss or at least dramatize our repressed approach to sex. Instead of coming up with a thesis statement about sexuality, I wanted to represent the anxieties and horrors associated with sex.
Bash: “I think that’s part of the merit of surrealism – learning through experience rather than being told.”
Bash: “Can you tell me a little bit about the character that repeatedly appears on the TV in the motel?”
Alex: “I wanted to create a world of this motel where someone is piping in fundamentalist Christianity, crossed with Mediterranean paganism, but it’s like worm Christianity: propaganda basically. The TV also operated as a formal device to move in and out of rooms and through people’s heads and dreams. That stuff is borrowed from my childhood. I’d watch a religious talk show after Saturday morning cartoons. But in the film, it was all meant to lend to a wider sense of the worm conspiracy, that these worm drugs could offer salvation and Godly truth.
Bash: I’m interested to hear about the special effects in the film. What were some of the challenges you had to overcome?
Ben: “Figuring out a way to have people vomit worms was tricky because a lot of times a vomit rig just has fluids and not also solids in it, so getting something that wouldn’t be clogged up once it had something flowing through it took experimenting. Also, doing that in the wintertime in Chicago is hard because a lot of liquids don’t flow the same way in near-freezing temperatures. Then once Covid happened, we got shut down in the middle of production, and we had to finish shooting the movie using Covid protocols which makes everything harder, especially when you have liquids involved that are kind of gross looking. It doesn’t make anyone feel comfortable.”
Bash: “Can you talk a little bit about the prosthetics at the end of the film?”
Ben: “That was a couple of different prosthetics. That also was tricky, and getting worms to flow through that was tricky. That didn’t even end up working totally right on set. It was a lot of trial and error.
Alex: “Both Ben and I wore masks for some shots. That helped solve some problems.”
Ben: “There’s some stuff we ended up shooting with us because we wanted to get as much good coverage as we could. It’s always tricky doing an interview about effects stuff because it’s like: do you want to be a magician who tells how you do your tricks, or do you want to let people enjoy it?”
Alex: “I always tell Ben to err on the side of: Biff’s face did transform, and it did explode with worms. It was a documentary.”
Bash: “Finally, what’s next for your team?”
Alex: “The next thing is called Anything that Moves. It’s an erotic thriller, or as I call it a “himbo giallo”. It’s about this guy who works as a bike delivery driver and is a sex worker on the side. All of his clients come from different walks of life, and it’s chill, almost magical at first. He can provide to them their deepest desires. But then the clients start to get brutally murdered. He’s got to run for his life, clear his name, and figure out who’s doing the murdering.
If you love surrealism and watching people’s lives get out of hand. This movie is a wild, funny, and chaotic ride. Buckle up!
All Jacked Up and Full of Worms will be available on Screambox starting November 8th and will have a limited run in theaters which can be found here.
“I promise, no one’s leaving here smarter tonight,” laughs Frank from the stage as he kicks off Cabane à Sang for its 9th annual trash horror film festival. The programming delivers an eclectic mix of gory, comedic, and bizarre short films from around the globe to a dedicated audience of enthusiastic fans.
What Is Cabane à Sang? A Quebec-Born Underground Horror Festival
Cabane à Sang (which translated to English means “Blood shack”, a play on the Quebecois termphrase cabane à sucre / sugar shack) is a homegrown festival based in Hochelaga, a densely populated working class neighborhood on the east side of Montreal, Québec. For $18 (CA$), you can enjoy hours of meticulously curated madness. A can of local microbrew is $6, a can of soda is $2, and you are guaranteed to see some shit you’ve never seen before in your life.
“We want everyone to be able to come to the fest. Shows for $18 don’t really exist anymore,” insisted organizer Marc-Antoine in a franglais conversation between him, myself and Frank before Saturday’s “Keep It Weird” show (note: some quotes have been translated to English). Frank tells me about the festival’s early days as a road show. “It was a total fucking flop!” he laughs, but the branding was strong, so after taking a year off to regroup, the 2nd edition had people lining up early to attend, surprising even the organizers.
Photo Courtesy of Cabane à Sang
How Cabane à Sang Adapted During COVID and Found a Permanent Home
The pandemic forced the team to adapt again (Quebecers faced some of the harshest COVID restrictions in North America), and they ended up live streaming a jerry-rigged MTV-style projection screen to show the films while audiences participated in the chat. After moving around to a few locations and struggling with a host of technical difficulties, they landed at Productions Jeun’Est, an old church that’s since been turned into an event space. “This year is really next level,” says Marc-Antoine. “We need to highlight the tech crew here, who are just hallucinant (incredible),” as well as the venue, he continued, who’ve “really welcomed us and helped us out.”
This year’s edition features 5 evenings of madness spread out over two weekends. The first weekend hosted the events SCIF’HIGH (promising the “best and worst” of science fiction), RE-Animation (exploring a “wide range of animation styles”), and their signature event, Keep It Weird (a mix of “proudly off-putting short films”). The second weekend will feature Mixed Meats (an “unhinged mix of every corner of horror”) and their infamous 200$ or less film competition – the Party Pooper Spectacular (this year, the theme is Pizza Horror). A $20 virtual pass to the whole fest is available online for those with the misfortune of missing the in person experience.
Why Filmmakers and Fans Take This “Trash” Horror Festival Seriously
Despite the goofy themes, the team of ten-ish organizers take their roles seriously, and are thrilled to have landed in a venue that can give the films the respect they deserve. “Our setup is a bit punk, but I just think about the filmmakers,” insists Marc Antoine. “They put in so much work, it’s normal that we do them justice with a good screening.” Frank echoes this sentiment. “Some stuff [we get] is not necessarily gory or cheap or whatever. They’re just, like, oddities, and they deserve to be seen, you know? And tonight we’re going to see some of them!”
People are already showing up when I arrive an hour early to Saturday’s show (unheard of in a city like Montreal, where showing up 45 min after doors open is the norm). The vibes stay immaculate, thanks to the team’s guiding motto: Don’t be an asshole. “Like legit, this is our only fucking rule here,” laughs Frank, and it applies to everyone, including the filmmakers. “I think we all love this project because it allows us to showcase stuff that we personally like and that we don’t see anywhere else,” says Marc-Antoine.
‘Dom’s Spaghetti’ Courtesy of Cabane à Sang
Weird, Gross, and Brilliant: Inside Cabane à Sang’s Most Bizarre Short Films
True to their words, the evening’s programming features some truly mind bending films, grouped together under ‘themes’ like ‘films that feature bread’ or ‘films that start with the letter D’. For every serious film about war or depression, there are five that are totally absurd. (Frank assures me that they’ve got “plenty of movies with dicks and poop and stuff like that!”) There’s the lesbian eldritch love story inspired by The Thing (The Fling), and there’s a meat-witch orgy movie (Plant Mom). One film is simply about a haunted bidet (Bidet), another features every cinematic iteration of Vin Diesel (Dom’s Spaghetti). Then there’s the mixed media movie Dog Shit, described perfectly as “parfum de caca, marteau dans les couilles” (I’ll leave you all to translate that one yourselves).
As the evening wraps up, Frank reminds the audience to return the following week, before yelling “Shout out bébé Jésus!” to enthusiastic applause, given that we are all sitting in a church. “Over the years, people have come from all over, from Abitibi, from the US,” Marc-Antoine tells me. “Ya, they fly in!!” adds Frank, “we don’t have the money to fucking pay for their flights!” Marc-Antoine continues, saying, “that shows that this really connects with people, locally, yes, but people all over are moved by what we’re doing. We’re going up against some big machines, some big productions, but we’re able to connect with people all the same.”
Cabane à Sang Proves That Micro-Budget Horror is More Important Than Ever
“People are fed up also, and I don’t want to get into the whole fucking AI thing,” Frank adds, “but I think a lot of people are irritated about it. We’re sitting in a great position right now.” When talking about the upcoming film competition on May 9th, I learned that they’ve got 22 unique micro budget works lined up, with an additional slate of films that will soon be on their streaming site, Caban à Sang TV. “AI cannot fucking make this shit up,” Frank says. “This is honest, this is real.”
If you’re having a conversation about contemporary queer horror and the other person hasn’t heard of Alice Maio Mackay, it’s time to stop talking, sit them down, and introduce them to one of the most interesting filmmakers operating in the space right now. At just 21, this Aussie powerhouse has a staggering six feature films under her belt, including the goopy T-Blockers (2023) and holiday horror Carnage for Christmas (2024). Her most recent, The Serpent’s Skin (read our review here), just hit VOD platforms following a successful festival run and limited theatrical release, delivering a soft, sensual sapphic love story—and a snake demon unleashed via a tattoo.
To celebrate the film’s release, I connected with Mackay to learn more about her influences, the collaborations that brought The Serpent’s Skin to life, and her advice for other queer storytellers. The following interview has been lightly edited for conciseness (aka removing the parts where I gushed over one of my favorite filmmakers).
Alice Maio Mackay on Queer Joy, Magnetic Chemistry, and a Touch of Horror Wish Fulfilment
Samantha McLaren: All your films center on queer and trans characters, but this one more than any other radiates with queer joy and euphoria. I’m curious if that was a conscious decision going into The Serpent’s Skin—to center that while still acknowledging trauma.
Alice Maio Mackay: Yeah, I think the way that I wanted to portray trauma was very different in this one. The trauma that both queer people go through is kind of like trauma bonding, bringing them together. It’s more of like past issues, whereas in my previous films, it’s very much been political, a bit angry, like these characters are dealing with bigotry on a daily basis. In this film, I’m not ignoring the issues that trans people face, but it’s more brief and lighter, and that’s not the focus of the film. I really wanted to show that trans people can love, and their love is magic in a sense.
SM: I wanted to talk about the tattoo in the film, because tattoos are such a big part of queer culture. Where did the idea of a tattoo gone wrong come from?
AMM: There’s a couple of different places. I really wanted to, especially with Danny, evoke 2000s gamer culture. That was always a big part, because I wanted to explore how those men who seem performatively woke can be toxic under the surface. Also, I grew up watching and reading The Mortal Instruments and things like that, where tattoos play a big part. And as you mentioned, tattoos are in the queer culture quite a bit. So it’s just a combination of all these things and I thought it was the perfect plot device as well.
SM: This movie centers on a psychic powers narrative, and I think for a lot of queer people, that’s a very wish fulfillment genre of horror. I’d love to hear about your own relationship with it and the influences it had on The Serpent’s Skin.
AMM: I loved Carrie growing up, albeit the remake with Chloë Grace Moretz, which is not a popular opinion. That came out when I was a child, and I read the book as well and really fell in love with that. Anything, as a queer kid, relating to the other and seeing people get their comeuppance, albeit in messed-up ways, is interesting.
And then Charmed was a really big part of my childhood, and Buffy [the Vampire Slayer], which both incorporate witchiness into everyday adolescent issues. The blend of those things has always been very interesting to me as a filmmaker because I feel like those shows weren’t trying to be necessarily scary or have horror at the forefront. It was more about the three women, or the Scooby Gang, and then the horror was propelling the story forward, but it was focused on character development, and their personal lives, which I was drawn to.
SM: Let’s talk about your characters, because the chemistry between the actors feels so sweet and natural. What was the casting process like for The Serpent’s Skin, and how did you work with Alexandra [McVicker] and Avalon [Fast] to build that chemistry?
AMM: So Alex, I was a fan of her work. I’d seen her in Vice Principals [2017] and some other stuff she’d done, and she was just a friend of a friend who I’d kind of got to know. And then Avalon, I was a fan of their work and thought they’re really cool. They said they wanted to get into acting, and the timing just worked out perfectly when they sent me a self tape.
I felt like I was really lucky with the chemistry because we didn’t have a lot of pre-production time. There were a few meetings with the intimacy coordinator before, but I think everyone got here like two days before we started shooting, and Alex got here the night before, so I don’t think they had met in person up until their first scene. The chemistry was just really natural—from the moment they had their first Zoom, it was electric. I think that’s a testament to their willingness to commit to the roles, and their talent.
SM: Such a big part of the sensuality in the film comes from the score, which is so dreamy. When you were working with the composers, what guidance did you give them around what you wanted The Serpent’s Skin to feel like?
AMM: I’ve been working with Alexander Taylor for a while. He brought a co-composer on for this one as well. And I love having a lot of types of music when we’re editing—we have a lot of different ideas about what we want it to sound like sonically, inspiration-wise. We’ve been working together for a really long time, so he kind of just knows what would click. And working with Vera [Drew] as well as an editor, she’s big into temp music, so all three of us were into shaping the score and the movement as early as possible, and then you take it from there.
SM: You mentioned working with Vera Drew of The People’s Joker. This is the second time she’s edited one of your films. How did that relationship come about, and what kind of energy did she bring to your films when she came on board?
AMM: It’s always been really special working with Vera because I looked up to her, and then she was a friend, and getting to work with a friend is always really special. I’ve said this a couple of times, but I think we’re very similar and really inspired by a lot of the same things. She very much understands my reference pool and the world that I want to create. So rather than having a stock edit from the footage, she would be like “oh, this is how you shot it—this is the order?”
She understands my vision, but crafts the footage through her own mind. Especially with the montages and overlays, she’s creating like other-wordly dream sequences through the footage we created, which is kind of like adding to my vision in a separate way I wouldn’t have maybe thought of from the get-go. It’s been a really valuable experience.
Unpacking the Challenges and Triumphs of Getting Queer Horror Made
SM: One thing I love about your films is that they’re so specific to the queer community, yet so accessible. There’s no need to over-explain things. Does that come naturally to you or are you thinking about a straight cis audience at all when you’re writing?
AMM: Maybe this is a bad thing to say, but I never think about an audience in general—especially with these films where there’s pretty much no money involved and you’re shooting in 12 days. I care about the story so much, and at the end of the day, I’m fighting so hard to even get these movies made, so I’m making the story and the vision that everyone on set wants to make.
I feel very lucky that people have been interested in these films. When I started, I never thought people would want to watch them, let alone come back for a few more. It’s a weird thing where it’s so hard to make these films that I just make them for myself, and that’s kind of it, and people seemingly want to see that, which is really nice.
SM: You started making films when you were very young, and you now have six features under your belt. How do you feel you’ve grown as a filmmaker?
AMM: I mean, I was like 14 when I made my first proper short film and 16 when I shot So Vam, so it has been a little while. I feel I’ve definitely become more confident and assured, just trusting people and collaborating, and not letting people speak over me—I know what I want artistically now. Maybe on So Vam, I wouldn’t nitpick or be as specific as I am now.
Working with Aaron [Schuppan, cinematographer] and Astra [Vadoulis, first camera assistant] since day one, almost, we’ve kind of grown up together and that’s been really special. We kind of have a hive mind now and can communicate in our own different ways. It’s been really beautiful and special.
SM: All your films are a little DIY, and I mean that as a compliment—it’s clear you’re getting out and making the things you want to make. But in an ideal world, if you had all the resources and time you wanted, what is your dream project?
AMM: I’m actually writing it at the moment. I hopefully will get it made at some point. The scope is grander; it’s a bit of a period piece, a little bit set in the 70s, a little bit in the future. It’s just this epic melodrama horror-romance about being doomed… We’ll see what happens.
SM: Fingers crossed, because I want to see that. If you had one piece of advice for other queer people who want to break into the film industry but are not sure where to get started, what would you say to them?
AMM: Corny as it sounds, start to tell a story that is accessible to you at the moment. It’s hard for people in general to break into the film industry, let alone queer people, and there’s no one way to do it. So just write that story, start making things with your friends, and then build up from there. That’s how I managed to start things.
The Serpent’s Skin is now available to watch on demand.
