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Teenage Sex & Death At Camp Miasma Review
Image Credit: MUBI
Loading...Directed by: Jane Schoenbrun
Written by: Jane Schoenbrun
Starring:
Hannah Einbinder – Kris
Gillian Anderson – Billy
Amanda Fix – Young Billy
Arthur Conti – Alex
Eva Victor – DJ Ella Giastic
Zach Cherry – Will
Patrick Fischler – Rudolph
Dylan Baker – Jeffrey
Jasmin Savoy Brown – Mari
Quintessa Swindell – Julie
Kevin McDonald – Anthony/County Sheriff
Jack Haven – Little Death
Running Time: 112 minutes
Not Rated.
Over the past five years, Jane Schoenbrun has established themselves as one of the new crop of virtuosos in horror filmmaking. The writer-director has quickly carved out a unique place for themselves in the genre, making a splash with 2021’s atmospheric We’re All Going to the World’s Fair before breaking out with 2024’s nostalgia-dipped I Saw The TV Glow. The two films established Schoenbrun’s talent at using visuals and vibes to enrapture an audience, pulling us into the films’ deeply personal stories rooted in Schoenbrun’s experiences as a transfemme nonbinary person.
Where those films were about the realization that one’s body and mind are out of sync, Teenage Sex & Death At Camp is about what comes after. The new film from Schoenbrun is billed as a meta-commentary on the slashers we all grew up with — and make no mistake, it is. But it’s also a gorgeous exploration of discovering your passion after you’ve made those difficult steps toward becoming who you were meant to be.
Teenage Sex & Death At Camp Miasma opens with a primer for its fictional slasher franchise Camp Miasma, a cross of Sleepaway Camp and Friday the 13th. The opening introduces us to the legacy of this series — initially popular before spawning a horde of familiar-sounding sequels (Camp Miasma Part VII: Psychic Warriors) of decreasing quality and box office receipts. Despite its value to the studio as IP, the franchise now has a reputation for being mired in homophobia and transphobia as well as constant failed revivals.
That’s where Kris (Hannah Einbinder) comes in. A young queer filmmaker on the rise, Kris is tapped to write a reboot that will explore Camp Miasma’s origins. It’s a franchise that means a lot to her and was formative to who she has become, and she has a lot of ideas about it. Kris has even tracked down Billy Presley (Anderson), the star of the original film who has become a recluse in the years since, and heads to the Pacific Northwest to meet with her.
When she arrives, she finds that Billy is living on the grounds of the original, now-abandoned summer camp that served as the filming location for Camp Miasma. She lounges like Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard, orders take-out fried chicken, and professes that Little Death (Jack Haven), the killer of Camp Miasma is still in a hole in the lake, waiting to be summoned. Is she joking, has she lost her mind, or is she just being truthful? It’s hard to say.
Where others might politely excuse themselves before running full tilt back to civilization, Kris finds herself captivated by the former film star. As they dig into dipping sauce-laden fried chicken and watch an original print of the first film together, Kris finds herself opening up about herself — her unease around sex, her ambivalent thoughts about her relationship with a polyamorous partner (Jasmin Savoy Brown). As the weekend progresses, she starts to find herself drawn into Billy’s seductive world — which means the world of Camp Miasma becomes all too real for her. Her intellectual ideas bleed into something deeper, and the notions of the titular sex and death become powerfully — perhaps dangerously — intertwined.
Schoenbrun is tackling their most ambitious project yet with Camp Miasma, which lives on a wider scale than the lonely isolationism of World’s Fair and the confined lives and suburbs of TV Glow. While mostly existing on the grounds of the summer camp, there is a lot going on there and the scope expands by hints and whispers to the larger world around it. Phone calls with Kris’ partner and a particularly satirical Zoom call with studio executives give us a deeper look at the pressures weighing on her as she tries to develop a vision for her film.
Still, the bulk of the camera’s focus is on these two characters and the original Camp Miasma, which is shown in swaths throughout the film. Anderson and Einbinder are doing stellar work here. Billy is a seductive delight through Anderson’s vamping performance, affecting a Southern drawl and the glamour that sets her somewhat out of time and adds to the dream-like atmosphere. Meanwhile, Einbinder is a more passive character but no less effective; the chemistry between the two sparks off the screen even before they start to draw closer to each other.
While the film is being understandably marketed as a horror film, it leans far heavier into its psychosexual drama notions. That’s not to say there won’t be a lot here for horror fans to enjoy; the Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp riffs hit the right balance between skewering 1980s horror and honoring it. Schoenbrun dives deep into the notion that sure, there’s validity to the way we view these critically through a modern lens. But that doesn’t take away the impact they had on us, and “problematic favorites” are still favorites for a reason.
At the same time, much like TV Glow this is about much more than just nostalgia toward the media we grew up with. It’s a story about sexual awakening and the importance of doing so once you’ve finally started to accept yourself and become who you need to be. Schoenbrun weaves the two themes together quite well, relying on the strength of their two leads to bring us to a potent (forgive the double entendre) climax.
It’s probably not hard to guess at this point that Camp Miasma is not going to be for everyone, to put it lightly. For some it will be too weird, not horror enough, too careful in its build. But these are all intentional choices, and they work brilliantly. Even if you aren’t swept away by the story or the performances, it’s a gorgeous and surprisingly funny film. The satire hits consistently and the original Camp Miasma scenes are a delight.
While Schoenbrun may not go as hard on the horror as some audiences may want, when they do the sequences are truly inspired. The gory content is used sparingly overall, but when it comes it it’s glorious. That includes a particular sequence that is both funny and brutal, set to a song that I certainly won’t ever think of the same way again. Add in a gorgeous production design, with matte-painted backgrounds set against the snow of the summer camp and a few trippy technicolor visual flairs, and you have a film whose artistry is impossible to deny.
At one point we see the VHS slipcase of the original Camp Miasma, which touts that “Now if it gets too real, you can turn it off.” Kris sees the same message later as she wanders the camp. In a film about reclaiming one’s joy — of movies, of desire — it reads more like a challenge, one Schoenbrun dares us not to do in our lives no matter how real it gets because there’s too much joy to be found when you push through. As to Teenage Sex & Death itself, it’s a pretty simple challenge once you lock into its vibes and let it take you away.
Teenage Sex & Death At Camp Miasma is now playing in limited release and expands wider on August 21st.
