Our Effed Up World

To save Earth from an insatiable alien, this slacker will need her dad and her effing loyal mates, who make a crap planet worth fighting for.

Sheri (Sara Thompson, One of Us Is Lying) hasn’t been okay since her beloved grandma (Kerry Armstrong, Lantana, MIFF 2001) died. She’s over her annoying boyfriend Harry (Jordan Dulieu, The Serpent’s Skin), and resents her astronomer dad Hank (Scott Major, Neighbours) for avoidantly watching the skies. When a glowing green meteorite crash-lands near their small town and its passenger starts melding gruesomely with locals, humanity’s last hope is Sheri, her dad and her Scooby Gang of mates: Poppy (Annapurna Sriram, Fucktoys), Ash (Karis Oka, The Deb) and Finn (Jess McLeod, One of Us Is Lying), whose run-down video store has become the alien’s lair.

Prolific Aussie queer-horror phenom Alice Maio Mackay (T Blockers), directing her seventh feature at the age of 21, merges retro schlock and teen-culture cool with a sincere affection for chosen family. It’s the opposite of effed-up that Major – the 90s Heartbreak High OG himself – stars here, and that she’s casting North Americans as rural Aussie retail shitkickers. Meanwhile, Mackay is building her own enviable friend gang: Our Effed Up World is produced by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow, MIFF 2024), and it’s a joy to spot cameos from TV Glow star Jack Haven and Lesbian Space Princess (MIFF 2025) co-writer/director_ Leela Varghese. 

Content: Melbourne International Film Festival