Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow inspired a ton of conversation at Sundance a couple of years ago for its exploration of the impact of consumed media on individual identity, especially at a young age. They return to a similar theme, albeit in the realm of horror, with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. A clear love for the slasher genre runs throughout the film, but also a willingness to tackle transphobic themes in some of the most classic franchises. Schoenbrun proves again to be one of the most unique and insightful voices working in film right now, and if they wanted to, could make a really killer horror movie, too.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma actually has a fictional horror franchise at its core, the Camp Miasma series, which is very much in the vein of Friday the 13th. The original movie was considered a genre classic, but it led to a slew of increasingly cheesy sequels, including a sci-fi riff ala Jason X. That’s where Hacks breakout Hannah Einbinder enters the picture as Kris, an indie filmmaker whose first movie, described hilariously as Psycho from the perspective of the shower curtain, has been hired to reboot the franchise. The original movies have been deemed transphobic, so the studio’s answer to that is hiring Kris largely because she’s LGBTQ. That should calm the woke masses, they figure. It’s not an entirely ridiculous scenario, and like a lot of things in this film, it rings as something Schoenbrun has encountered already.
X-Files legend Gillian Anderson enters the picture as Billy Presley, the final girl of the original Camp Miiasma, who Kris hopes to cast in her movie. Billy has become a recluse, literally living on the old movie set, still designed to resemble a sleepaway camp. Being of a much simpler time, Billy doesn’t understand all of Kris’ high-concept reboot ideas. While they aren’t always on the same page, the two are drawn to one another, and the sexual tension is thick almost immediately. The first half of the movie is largely dedicated to this dynamic, with Schoenbrun engaging in some light-hearted, sexually charged interactions, many of them involving buckets of KFC and bushels of candy.
Whereas I Saw the TV Glow was about sexual identity and finding community, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is about sexual awareness and awakening. For much of the film, Kris is uncomfortable in her own skin. She is completely different around Billy, as the two bond through their mutual obsession with Little Death, the psycho killer from the Camp Miasma films, and a kind of eroticism that comes with being one of his victims. This leads to the film’s most purely enjoyable stretch, where Schoenbrun recreates the movie in the style of nostalgic ’80s and ’90s slashers, with burn marks in the film print and everything. It’s here that we also get some really fun casting choices, such as Severance actor Zach Cherry and Sorry, Baby superstar Eva Victor as actors way too old to be playing horny teens. Sarah Sherman, Quintessa Swindell, and Jasmin Savoy Brown complete an ensemble full of queer representation and community supporters.
Having never watched Hacks but heard of Einbinder’s performances from others, she was a revelation to me. She’s immensely watchable and likable, bouncing between Kris’ stubbornness as a hotshot intellectual filmmaker and the awkwardness which she approaches anything that hits closer to home. Anderson, doing her best Norma Desmond impression, is clearly having a blast and chewing up every scene she shares with Einbinder.
The final act goes a bit off the rails, as Kris and Billy indulge in some wild erotic desires. It’s too meta and over-the-top for its own good, and raises questions about what’s real and what isn’t that don’t necessarily need to be asked at such a late stage. That said, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is, in its own way, a love letter to horror and fans of the genre are going to eat up every bloody morsel. The future is bright for both Schoenbrun and Einbinder, and hopefully we get to see a lot more from them both in the horror space.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma opens August 7th.
