Arts & Entertainment
Anatomy of a victory
Behind the scenes of the Maryland marriage battle
Question 6 supporters and opponents placed signs outside Northwood Elementary School in Baltimore on Nov. 6. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
Edgewater, Md., residents Adri Eathorne and Kim-May Hinken arrived at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis to visit their friend, Scott Bowling, shortly before the polls closed at 8 p.m. on Election Day. The three of them nervously awaited the results of the referendum on Maryland’s same-sex marriage law as the slowly began to trickle in.
More than four hours later, they learned Question 6 had narrowly passed.
“We closed his hospital room door,” Eathorne, who has been with Hinken nine years, says. “We closed his hospital room door so we could [yell] ‘Yeah!’ and high-five each other and hug and kiss and cry.”
The passage of Question 6 by a 52-48 percent margin on Nov. 6 capped off an anxious night of waiting for the hundreds of people and dozens of reporters who had gathered at the Baltimore Soundstage.
One of Gov. Martin O’Malley’s staffers wrote on a napkin during lunch on Election Day that the referendum would pass with 53 percent support. Congressman Elijah Cummings made the same prediction during an interview with the Washington Blade earlier in the day outside a Northeast Baltimore polling place at which the governor, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Brendon Ayanbadejo of the Baltimore Ravens greeted voters.
“I had a pretty good sense as we were heading into Election Day that it was going to hold,” O’Malley said in a Blade interview this week. “I had a pretty good sense in the course of those last 10 days that it was on a good positive trajectory.”
Josh Levin, campaign manager for Marylanders for Marriage Equality, was backstage with the governor, Rawlings-Blake and several other elected officials watching the results come in. President Obama had already won re-election by the time Politico reported shortly before midnight that Question 6 had passed with 84 percent of precincts reporting.
Levin and others remained hesitant to declare victory because Montgomery County had yet to report election results. (Question 6 passed in the county by a 65-35 percent margin.)
“Once we figured that out then I started breathing a little more deeply,” O’Malley says. “Then when the Montgomery County numbers came in and we were up to 51 [percent,] the night seemed to be coming into perspective. We were very reluctant to claim a victory of course until we had enough of the numbers in.”
Levin last week, while cleaning out Marylanders for Marriage Equality’s Baltimore office, says Question 6 was leading throughout the night.
“We watched it grow to 45,000 votes or so,” he says. “It shrank at one point to about 12,000. But right around midnight we felt like we had a pretty good sense of where things were. And so I went back to talk through what still could happen, what’s still out, where do we think that’s coming from and made the decision to go up on stage and declare victory from there.”
“There was confidence once the results started to come in,” says gay state Sen. Rich Madaleno (D-Montgomery County.) “There was confidence all night long, it’s just a matter of when do you say it. And because we had never won before, there’s no desire to jinx yourself. I think you’re more cautious than you would have ever been.”
The Washington Post projected Question 6 had passed just as O’Malley, Rawlings-Blake, Levin and others took to the stage to declare victory. Those gathered inside the Baltimore Soundstage became euphoric when lesbian state Del. Maggie McIntosh (D-Baltimore City) announced the referendum had passed. People began to cry. Gay state Dels. Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City) and Heather Mizeur (D-Montgomery County) were among those who started dancing once the governor and other dignitaries stepped away from the podium.
O’Malley instrumental in fundraising
Election Day capped off a long and often tumultuous effort for Maryland’s same-sex marriage advocates that began in 1997 when three state lawmakers introduced the first bill that would have allowed nuptials for gays and lesbians.
Equality Maryland, which nearly closed in June 2011, and the American Civil Liberties Union in 2004 filed a lawsuit on behalf of Lisa Polyak and Gita Deane and eight other same-sex couples and a gay widow who sought the right to marry in the state. The Maryland Court of Appeals in 2007 ultimately upheld the constitutionality of the state’s ban on marriage for gays and lesbians.
State lawmakers in 2011 narrowly defeated a same-sex marriage bill, but legislators approved it in February. O’Malley signed the law on March 1.
Governor Martin O’Malley speaks to reporters outside Northwood Elementary School in Baltimore on Nov. 6. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
The governor soon emerged as the law’s most prominent supporter, especially after the Maryland Marriage Alliance collected more than 160,000 signatures to force a referendum on the issue. Marylanders for Marriage Equality turned to O’Malley, among others, in early August to help bolster their then-anemic fundraising efforts.
“We found ourselves in a situation where polling looked good, we felt good about what we were building, but we simply weren’t bringing in money at the rate that we needed to,” Levin says. “We as a campaign and with our board members we sort of rang the bell a little bit and talked to the governor, got Maggie McIntosh more involved. The ACLU redoubled their efforts. And I think brought to bear all the efforts that helped us [reach] the financial goals that we needed to.”
Levin said in June his group could effectively defend the law with between $5-$7 million, in spite of some observers who said Marylanders for Marriage Equality needed to raise up to $12 million.
O’Malley headlined a star-studded fundraiser gay former Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman co-hosted at a New York City hotel in September that raised more than $100,000 for the pro-Question 6 group. The governor also appeared at an Oct. 2 fundraiser with D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) at gay Democratic lobbyist Steve Elmendorf’s Logan Circle home. Former National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and his wife Chan announced a $100,000 donation to Marylanders for Marriage Equality during the fundraiser that Chip DiPaula, Jr., former Gov. Bob Ehrlich, Jr.’s gay chief-of-staff, attended alongside Mizeur and others.
The Human Rights Campaign contributed more than $1.5 million in cash and in-kind contributions to the pro-Question 6 campaign. Freedom to Marry, which initially declined to join the coalition defending the state’s same-sex marriage law, said it invested more than $200,000 into the campaign. This figure includes the $70,000 it gave that helped Marylanders for Maryland Equality air their radio ad highlighting President Obama’s support of marriage rights for same-sex couples in the days leading up to Election Day.
“HRC provided so much of the backbone to this whole effort,” Madaleno says. “They were absolutely critical.”
Marylanders for Marriage Equality ultimately raised $6 million — they consistently outraised the Maryland Marriage Alliance throughout the Question 6 campaign. The ACLU and other organized labor groups contributed more than $1 million to Marylanders for Marriage Equality.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Republican hedge fund manager Paul Singer both donated $250,000 to the pro-Question 6 campaign. The bulk of the 11,000 people who contributed to Marylanders for Marriage Equality, however, live in Maryland.
“We proved from going to the state that nobody thought could win to being the second-widest margin after Maine among the four is pretty cool,” Levin says. “And I want to really say the team that was here through the legislative campaign that figured out, that believed in doing Maryland when nobody else did — the leadership of folks like Sultan [Shakir] and Kevin [Nix], Rich Madaleno and Luke Clippinger and all the others.”
One of the proudest moments of the campaign for Levin came when Marylanders for Marriage Equality was able to counter a Maryland Marriage Alliance television ad that claimed Question 6 would force schools to teach same-sex marriage with their own ad eight hours later that featured Baltimore County teacher Pamela Gaddy. Levin showed it to McIntosh, HRC President Chad Griffin, former O’Malley adviser Joe Bryce and his wife Kristen and a handful of others shortly after he arrived at a campaign fundraiser at DiPaula’s home before he put it on the air on Oct. 26.
“We were ready and able to do it that fast, versus the stories that so many other folks who worked in California [on the campaign against Proposition 8] told just having to figure it out there,” Levin says. “The lessons they learned they gave us and we applied. And we took a Maryland angle on it, putting up an African-American, Baltimore-area schoolteacher to just go, ‘That’s not true, you know.’ When we looked at it a week later, their argument wasn’t resonating. People just weren’t buying it, according to our research.”
Obama, NAACP endorsements key
O’Malley, Levin and Mizeur all noted Obama’s public support of marriage rights for gays and lesbians and his endorsement of the same-sex marriage law garnered additional support among black Marylanders.
In addition to the radio ad featuring the president, Marylanders for Marriage Equality also sent a mailing that contained his and first lady Michelle Obama’s statements in support of marriage rights for same-sex couples to 200,000 African-American households in the state. (Baltimore Black Pride co-chair Meredith Moise was handing out these fliers on Election Day as she spoke with voters outside a polling place at a Northeast Baltimore elementary school.)
“It was important that we echoed their support,” Levin says.
The NAACP’s support of Question 6 and particularly television ads that featured Julian Bond, the civil rights organization’s chair emeritus, and Revs. Delman Coates of Mount Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton and Donté Hickman of Southern Baptist Church in Baltimore appear to have resonated with voters in the predominantly black Charm City.
Question 6 passed by a 57-43 percent margin in Baltimore City. It lost by slightly more than 4,300 votes in Prince George’s County.
A Public Policy Polling survey in May found 55 percent of black Marylanders would vote for the law, compared to 36 percent who said they would oppose it. A Hart Research Associates survey conducted in late July found 44 percent of African-American voters would support Question 6, compared to 45 percent who said they would vote against it. A Gonzales Research poll in September noted 44 percent of black Marylanders backed marriage rights for same-sex couples, compared to 52 percent who oppose nuptials for gays and lesbians. An Associated Press exit poll indicates roughly half of black Maryland voters voted against Question 6.
Maryland Marriage Alliance Chair Derek McCoy, Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville and others who opposed the law repeatedly criticized and even mocked the NAACP, Obama, Coates, Hickman and other prominent black leaders who backed marriage rights for same-sex couples in the state. Some Question 6 opponents resorted to increasingly homophobic rhetoric during appearances at black churches and other public forums in the weeks leading up to Election Day. Pastor Luke Robinson of Quinn Chapel AME Church in Frederick even suggested during a sparsely attended rally against the same-sex marriage law at a city park on Nov. 4 that Superstorm Sandy struck New York City less than three weeks after Bloomberg donated $250,000 to Marylanders for Marriage Equality.
“It pretty clearly was having an effect,” Levin says. “I don’t think the other guys would have been bringing it up as often if it hadn’t been.”
The Maryland State Conference of the NAACP and the organization’s Prince George’s County and Baltimore branches in particular factored prominently in the pro-Question 6 campaign.
Bob Ross, president of the Prince George’s County Branch of the NAACP, organized phone banks and canvassing efforts ahead of Election Day. He also spoke about his gay brother who had lived in the closet for years during a Nov. 5 rally at the University of Maryland in College Park that O’Malley, Hoyer, Madaleno, state Sen. Allan Kittleman (R-Carroll and Howard Counties) and others attended.
“Surely we need to recognize not only the importance of their endorsement, but the amount of work that they did,” Levin says.
Couples busy planning weddings
With all the behind-the-scenes work that led to the passage of Question 6, the only thing that matters to those who plan to take advantage of the law once it officially takes effect on Jan. 1 is the fact they can legally marry the person they love.
“It was kind of like, ‘Oh my God, what are we doing about our wedding plans?’” says ShaDonna Jackson, a Hyattsville, Md., resident who plans to wed her partner of nearly four years, Latisha Smith. “We needed absolute certainty because it’s a serious matter. It’s like, ‘Oh my goodness everything depends on this, so we need to know.’ And now that we know, we are back to our wedding plans.”
Eathorne and Hinken, who chairs the annual Chesapeake Pride Festival, are planning to get married in Annapolis on the first day same-sex couples can legally marry in the state.
“We’ve waited so long for it to be legal in our home state that we really wanted to do it as soon as possible,” Eathorne says (they had a church wedding in 2007). Hinken also spoke in support of the same-sex marriage bill in front of the State House in Annapolis. “We just want to make that statement. And that’s one of the reasons why we want it to be ASAP. We’ve been together for nine years. We don’t need a big full-blown wedding. We had our thing. It is special and we do plan to acknowledge it and celebrate it in some way.”
Madaleno, who once again proposed to his husband Mark on stage at the Baltimore Soundstage after Question 6 passed, plans to have what he describes as their “renewal of vows” once they and their two children return from a family vacation at Walt Disney World in Florida in January. The couple married 11 years ago at their Bethesda church, but Madaleno said having the legal recognition will make it even more official.
“What will be different,” he says, “is we’re getting a license.”
Friday, April 3
Center Aging Monthly Luncheon With Yoga will be at 12 p.m. at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. Email Mac at [email protected] if you require ASL interpreter assistance, have any dietary restrictions, or questions about this event.
Go Gay DC will host “First Friday LGBTQ+ Community Social” at 7 p.m. at Silver Diner Ballston. This is a chance to relax, make new friends, and enjoy happy hour specials at this classic retro venue. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Saturday, April 4
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including allies, together for delicious food and conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Nellies Sports Bar will host “Nellies DC Drag Brunch” at 12 p.m. Come get served like a queen, by a queen at the top rated Drag Brunch in DC! Join Sapphire Blue, Deja Diamond and their team of amazing drag performers, for the most fun you’ll have all weekend. Tickets start at $58.51 and are available on Eventbrite.
Monday, April 6
Center Aging: Monday Coffee Klatch will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more information, contact Adam ([email protected]).
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Happy Hour Meetup” at 5:30 p.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar and restaurant. This event is ideal for making new friends. It’s free to attend. The group will gather inside at the purple booth to the left. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Tuesday, April 7
Universal Pride Meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This group seeks to support, educate, empower, and create change for people with disabilities. For more details, email [email protected].
Wednesday, April 8
Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom upon request. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit www.thedccenter.org/careers.
Thursday, April 9
The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. To be more fair with who is receiving boxes, the program is moving to a lottery system. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5:00 pm if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245.
Virtual Yoga Class will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This free weekly class is a combination of yoga, breathwork and meditation that allows LGBTQ+ community members to continue their healing journey with somatic and mindfulness practices. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website.
a&e features
Award-winning D.C. chef reaching new culinary heights
Anthony Jones of Marcus DC competing on ‘Top Chef’
In Anthony Jones’s kitchen, all sorts of flags fly, including his own. Executive chef at award-winning restaurant Marcus DC, Jones has reached culinary heights (James Beard Award semifinalist for Emerging Chef, anyone?), yet he’s just getting started.
Briefly stepping away from his award-winning station, Jones took a moment under a different set of lights. Recently, he temporarily gave up his post at the restaurant for a starring small-screen slot on the latest season of “Top Chef,” which debuted in March. (The show airs weekly on Bravo and Peacock).
Before his strategic slice-and-dice competition, however, Jones, who identifies as gay, draws from his deep DMV roots. In the years before “Top Chef” and the top chef spot at Marcus, he was born and raised in Sunderland, Md., in southern Maryland, near the Chesapeake.
Early memories were steeped in afternoons on boats with his dad bonding over fishing, and wandering the garden of his great-grandparents spread with fresh vegetables and a few hogs. “It was Southern, old-school ethics and upbringing,” he said. “Family and food went hand in hand.” Weekends meant grabbing bushels of crabs, dad and grandma would cook and crack them. Family members would host fish fries for extra cash. In this seafood-heavy youth, Jones managed time to sneak in episodes of the “OG” Japanese “Iron Chef” show, which helped inspire him to pursue a career in the kitchen.
Jones moved to D.C. after graduating from college, ending up at lauded Restaurant Eve, and met famed chef Marcus Samuelson, who brought him to Miami to be part of the opening team for Red Rooster Overtown. After three years, Jones moved back to D.C., where he ran Dirty Habit, reinventing and reimagining the menu, integrating West African flavors and ingredients.
Samuelson, however, wouldn’t let a talent like Jones stay away for too long. Pulling Jones back into his orbit, Samuelson elevated Jones to help him open his namesake restaurant Marcus DC, which has been named a top-five restaurant by the Washington Post. Since then, Jones has been nominated as a semifinalist for the RAMMYs Rising Culinary Star in 2026 and won the Eater DC’s Rising Chef award in 2025.
Samuelson’s Marcus is a tour de force interpreting the Black Diaspora on the plate, from the American South to West Africa, along with his signature “Swedopian” touches. Yet it’s Jones who has deeply informed the plate, elevating his own story to date. Marcus DC is primarily a seafood restaurant, which serves Jones well.
“Where I’m from is seafood heavy, and as I’ve progressed in my career, I’ve moved away from meat.” Veggies and fish are hero dishes. His own dish, Mel’s Crab Rice, was not only lauded by the Washington Post, but is framed by his youth carrying home the crustaceans from Mel’s crab truck. It’s a bowl of Carolina rice, layered with pickled okra, uni béarnaise, and crab. Jones also points to a dish on the opening menu, rockfish and brassica, paying respect to a landmark D.C. institution, Ben’s Chili Bowl. Jones reverse engineered a favorite bowl of chili that’s seafood instead of meat forward, leveraging octopus and rockfish along with different riffs of cauliflower: showing his intellectual, creative, and cultural sides.
While “Top Chef” is showing Jones’s spotlight side, he also lets his identity show at work. “In the kitchen, I make sure we’re inclusive. We don’t tolerate discrimination. Everyone that’s here should feel confident to express themselves. There are so many different flags in the kitchen.”
Jones says that he didn’t fully express his gay identity until fairly recently. He felt reluctant coming out to certain family members, “you’re scared to tell them about being different,” he says, and while that anxiety ate at him, “I’m lucky and fortunate to have unconditional love and that weight off my shoulders.”
Today, “I’m me all the time, Monday to Sunday. I’m honest with people, and my staff is honest with me.”
“Being a chef is hard,” he says, “and being a chef of color is even more difficult.”
Yet his LGBTQ identity is a juggling act, he says. “I need to keep that balance, because once someone finds out something about you, their opinion can change, whether you want it or not.”
Being on a whole season of TV cooking competition, however, might mean millions more might have an opinion of him (Jones has appeared on TV already, on an episode of “Chopped”). To prepare, he says, “I’ve just kept a level head. It’s just an honor to be on top chef with amazing people happy to be there.”
Plus, this season is set in the Carolinas, and Jones attended Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s a full story of my life, now a monumental moment for me.”
Jones also recently was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. “JBF has been a north star, a dream for so long. I always had this goal on my wall.”
Being at the top spot at Marcus DC, making waves through his accolades, and cooking on Bravo means that Jones is highly visible. “I think that if someone has a similar background to me, and can see our story, trajectory, and success, they can have more ability to be themselves. This is my goal.”
Back at Marcus, Jones has plenty up his chef’s white’s sleeves. A new spring menu is in the works. He’ll be launching a new tasting menu “dining experience,” he says, and has plans to work on more events and collaborations with chefs and friends to bring in new talent and share the culinary wealth.
Movies
Trans-driven ‘Serpent’s Skin’ delivers campy sapphic horror
Embracing classic tropes with a candid exploration of queer experience
It’s probably no surprise that the last decade or so has seen a “renaissance” in horror cinema. Long underestimated and dismissed by critics and ignored by all the awards bodies as genre films, horror movies were deemed for generations as unworthy of serious consideration; relegated into the realm of “fandom,” where generations of young movie fanatics were left to find deeper significance on their own, they have inspired countless future film artists whose creative vision would be shaped by their influence. Add to that the increasing state of existential anxiety that has us living like frogs in a slow-boiling pot, and it seems as if the evolution of horror into what might be our culture’s most resonant form of pop art expression was more or less inevitable all along.
Queer audiences, of course, have always understood that horror provides an ideal vehicle to express the “coded” themes that spring from existence as a stigmatized outsider, and while the rise of the genre as an art form has been fueled by filmmakers from every community, the transgressive influence of queerness – particularly when armed with “camp,” its most surefire means of subversion – has played an undeniable role in building a world where movies like “Sinners” and “Weapons” can finally be lauded at the Oscars for their artistic qualities as well as celebrated for their success at providing paying audiences with a healthy jolt of adrenaline.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the boldest and most biting entries are coming from trans filmmakers like Jane Schoenbrun (“I Saw the TV Glow”) – and like Australian director Alice Maio Mackay, whose new film “The Serpent’s Skin” opened in New York last weekend and expands to Los Angeles this week.
Described in a review from RogerEbert.com as “a kind of ‘Scanners’ for the dolls,” it’s a movie that embraces classic horror tropes within a sensibility that blends candid exploration of trans experience with an obvious love for camp. It centers on twenty-something trans girl Anna (Alexandra McVicker), who escapes the toxic environment of both her dysfunctional household and her conservative hometown by running away to the “Big City” and moving in with her big sister (Charlotte Chimes). On her first night in town, she connects with Danny (Jordan Dulieu), a neighbor (the only “hottie” in the building, according to her sister) who plays guitar in a band and ticks off all her “edgy” boxes, and has a one-night stand.
The very next day, she starts a new job at a record store, where she connects – through an intense and unexpected incident – with local tattoo artist Gen (Avalon Faust), a young woman she has seen in psychic visions, and who has been likewise drawn to her. The reason? They are both “witches,” born with abilities that give them a potentially deadly power over ordinary humans, and bound together in an ancient supernatural legacy.
It goes without saying that they fall in love; together, they teach and learn from each other as they try to master the mysterious magical gifts they both possess; but when Danny coincidentally books Gen for a tattoo inspired by his earlier “fling” with Anna, an ancient evil is unleashed, leading to a string of horrific incidents and forcing them to confront the dark influences within their own traumatic histories which may have conjured this malevolent spirit in the first place, before it wreaks its soul-stealing havoc upon the entire community.
Confronting the theme of imposed trans “guilt” head on, “Serpent’s Skin” emanates from a softer, gentler place than most horror films, focusing less on scares than on the sense of responsibility which seems naturally to arise just from being “different.”. Both McVicker and Faust bring a palpable feeling of weight to their roles, as if their characters are carrying not only their own fate upon their shoulders, but that of the world at large; blessed (or cursed) with a layer of awareness that both elevates and isolates them, their characters evoke a haunting sense of responsibility, which permeates their relationship and supersedes their personal desires. At the same time, they bring a mix of respect and eroticism to the sapphic romance at the center of the film, evoking a connection to the transgressive and iconic “lesbian noir” genre but replacing its sense of amoral cynicism with an imperative toward empathy and social responsibility.
All of this helps to make the film’s heroines relatable, and raises the stakes by investing us not just in the defeat of supernatural evil, but the triumph of love. Yet we can’t help but feel that there’s something lost – a certain edge, perhaps – that might have turned up the heat and given the horror a more palpable bite. Though there are moments of genuine fright, most of the “scary” stuff is campy enough to keep us from taking things too seriously – despite the best efforts of the charismatic Dulieu, who literally sinks his teeth into his portrayal of the possessed version of Danny.
More genuinely disturbing are the movie’s scenes of self-harm, which both underscore and indict the trope of trans “victimhood” while reminding us of the very real fear at the center of many trans lives, especially when lived under the oppression of a mindset that deplores their very existence.
Still, though Mackay’s film may touch on themes of queer and trans existence and build its premise on a kind of magical bond that makes us all “sisters under the skin,” it is mostly constructed as a stylish tribute to the classic thrillers of an earlier age, evoking the psychological edge of directors like Hitchcock and DePalma while embracing the lurid “shock value” of the B-movie horror that shaped the vision of a modern generation of filmmakers who grew up watching it – and even if it never quite delivers the kind of scares that linger in our minds as we try to go to sleep at night, it makes up for the shortfall with a smart, sensitive, and savvy script and a rare depiction of trans/lesbian love that wins us over with chemistry, emotional intelligence, and enviable solidarity.
What makes “The Serpent’s Skin” feel particularly remarkable is that it comes from a 21-year-old filmmaker. Mackey, who built the foundation of her career behind the camera with a series of low-budget horror shorts in her teens, has already made an impact with movies ranging from the vampire horror comedy “So Vam” (released when she was 16) to the horror musical “Satanic Panic” and the queer holiday shockfest “Carnage for Christmas”. With her latest effort, she deploys a confidence and a style that encompasses both the deep psychological nuance of the horror genre and its guilty-pleasure thrills, rendered in an aesthetic that is grounded in intimate queer and trans authenticity and yet remains daring enough to take detours into the surreal and psychedelic without apology.
It’s the kind of movie that feels like a breakthrough, especially in an era when it feels especially urgent for trans stories to be told.
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