Director: Alice Maio Mackay Screenwriter: Alice Maio Mackay, Benjamin Pahl Robinson Cast: Lauren Last, Lewi Dawson, Toshiro Glenn, Etcetera Etcetera Distributor: Alice Maio Mackay, Erin Paterson Running Time: 74 min. MPAA: Not Rated

Here’s the good stuff. Here’s that scrappy, rebellious spirit for the transgender experience we need now more than ever. The cheapness of T Blockers can be felt in its rickety horror staging, but the rage for the world is loud that you can just want to scream/sing along. The rise of fascism, the anti-trans rhetoric, and the weary anxiety of continuing the fight is all there in a neon swirl of blazing queer fury. It also has that gooey gore center that makes it such a horror treat.

The film centers around two friends, Sophie (Lauren Last) and her best friend Spencer (Lewi Dawson). Sophie is a transgender woman struggling to make it in the dating scene while working at the local cinema, while Spencer aims to write a screenplay for coming out as gay. As they struggle through their pain with booze, drugs, and puking together, terror lurks in the streets. The alt-right movement has taken the form of a grotesque parasite that infects incels with its slimy satisfaction about giving into the desires for bigotry. Soon, Sophie and Spencer will join forces as they have to rid their Australian community of this vile outbreak that leads to zombified men attacking the queer community. The government doesn’t give a shit as they continue to pass laws that toss the queer community to the curb. So the queer community puts the parasitic men to the curb and stomps on their skulls until the green goop falls out.

This is the type of film that brilliantly uses subtext and text to weave its all-too-relatable tale of eroding rights. As the film begins, drag queen Cryptessa (Etcetera Etcetera) gives a spooky introduction about how this story is fiction but maybe more real than you think. With her narration about all of us staring into the abyss, one might assume she’s talking about the movie we’re watching, but she’s not really. The camera pulls out to reveal that this is the intro to an indie horror called Terror from Below, made by a suicidal trans woman about creepy monsters. But as the film goes on, the presence of Terror from Below seems more like a warning than a diversion. Fiction and reality mix so beautifully with this format, where characters can speak of men being infected by the incel virus, but still call out the shitty anti-trans measures being pushed and name names that spread propagandistic trash about traditional values, those names being Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro.

There is never one note that this film harps on, making the revolutionary vigor all the more potent. There are tender moments, as when Sophie meets with her brother London (Joe Romeo), smoking as they discuss their dad recovering from addiction. There are moments of struggle, such as when the common practice of tossing bigots out of the bar loops in the new ally of Kris (Toshiro Glenn). The tiring can be felt as Sophie rants about hard it is to keep fighting when the world gets worse. There are horror delights with the budgeted yet gruesome displays of slime-infected zombie men that feast on the intestines of their victims. Then there’s the real horror of governments banning trans healthcare and right-wing rallies for traditional values as an excuse to be bullying assholes. Finally, there’s the furious musical climax which spits acid so hard with lyrics like “Dead men don’t rape!”

T Blockers is the transgender rebellion movie we need now more than ever. It doesn’t shy away from the hideous nature of today’s anti-queer world, but also takes satisfaction in thrashing back against the grotesque people who prop up so a hateful society. The teeth are razor sharp for this type of film that proclaims loudly and angrily that we need to fight back. The truth is that the right-wing discriminators are not infected with a parasite, but they are being infected and spreading wildly. With governments unwilling to challenge this bubbling fascism, it’s going to be up to all of us to do the fighting. It is going to be hard and this film doesn’t shy away from that anxiety of constantly having to fight. But it is a fight worth continuing if only to ensure that homophobes and TERFs never feel safe in this world. That rallying cry is thankfully made by queer filmmakers in a film where they’re not afraid to proclaim, “Never fuck with queer filmmakers.”

You may also like