Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Kris (Hannah Einbinder, TV's 'Hacks'), an up and coming lesbian indie director known for her queer perspectives, is given a chance to resuscitate a forty-five year-old slasher ip and decides to visit the original film's final girl, Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), now a recluse who lives at Camp Tivoli, the original film location. But as Kris and Billy get to know each other and Kris opens up about her sexual hang-ups, she's in for more than reboot inspiration in "Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma."
Laura's Review: A-
This movie is a blast on so many levels. Writer/director Jane Schoenbrun ("I Saw the TV Glow"), who has been exploring their gender transition in their prior films, has made their most personal film to date while also both analyzing and parodying the slasher genre. Schoenbrun brings awareness to the underlying transphobia in so many horror films, beginning with Kris's divisive debut film told from the perspective of "Psycho's" shower curtain, while also having fun tying together those eternal companions, sex and death. The film also features an opening credit sequence which is its own stand alone film, using videotapes, lobby cards, collectible figures, arcade and board games and newspaper ads and reviews to give us the history of "Camp Miasma" and the umpteen sequels which followed to diminishing returns. This sequence alone deserves awards, it's a mini masterpiece.
After spending a night in a local hotel whose desk clerk has had small parts in the "Camp Miasma" films, Kris sets off on a snowy road, her GPS guiding her off road and into a snowbank. She treks through the storm, arriving at the camp to find a building labeled 'Cinema' and enters to a film unspooling within. Just when she recognizes an upcoming jump scare, in walks Billy, all done up like what the studio execs had jokingly called her, Norma Desmond, startling Kris. 'He always comes back,' Billie says in a Dolly Parton drawl of Miasma's drowned camper, now its vengeful killer wearing opaque plastic coveralls and an air vent over his head. He brandishes a phallic fishing spear and is known as Little Death (the French euphemism for orgasm). Kris marvels at 'the look in her eye' as the younger Billy (Amanda Fix) loses her virginity on screen, death approaching. This, she tells Billy, is what she wishes to recapture in her film.
Billy insists Kris stay with her for the night due to the storm. Kris, who we've seen gorging on movie snacks in her hotel room, delights, noting caches of gummies, Starbursts, Skittles and Rolos in addition to being invited to share a big, fat joint. And when Billy's offer of dinner comes up empty, she'll go to plan B, two buckets of KFC mounded on a platter like a sacrificial offering, Schoenbrun adding to the laugh with a dissolve into a similarly stacked fireplace, all part of Billy's seduction. 'Do you like dipping sauce?' Billy purrs, later telling Kris the slasher genre comes down to two things - 'flesh and fluids.'
Overnight, Kris will be alarmed when she overhears Billy talking to someone, but the next morning Billy says they are the only two in the house. Kris dons a red knit hood and ventures out through the woods to a local store whose owner (David Dastmalchian, "Late Night with the Devil") gives her a creepy warning like the local in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," another film featuring gender fluidity. Kris makes a phone call to share her excitement over getting Billy onboard, excitement not shared by the studio execs she speaks with. Upon her return to Billy's, Kris will learn Little Death's (Jack Haven) origin story, the camper's parents hermaphrodites who continually changed the child's gender, making him the target of bullying which turned fatal. Billy, wearing a bejeweled black turban, intones 'Rise' and Schoenbrun switches to Little Death's point of view, emerging from the hole at the bottom of the lake where all these movies come from, his spear held aloft, to go on a killing spree which plays like a music video, geysers of blood shooting twenty feet in the air as victims heads are lopped off. We get a glimpse of Little Death's happy face in the center of that vent and Billy shares the sexual excitement she feels when imagining a psycho escaped from a mental ward is coming to chop her into pieces. The filmmaker who's labeled herself poly and whose sexual identity is shared with her professional one, admits to Billy she's never been able to enjoy sex. Billy, a kindred spirit, will lead Kris to sexual ecstasy with a little help from a friend.
Schoenbrun's production, from their finely detailed script to production design which incorporates old school matte backdrops and reflections of Little Death in Billy's artwork and architecture, is estimable in its intricate layering. At one point watching "Camp Miasma," Kris utters 'split diopter' (a shot where both the foreground and background are in focus via use of a half glass filter) just as Schoenbrun uses one. Costume designer Kendra Terpenning's work is integral as well, from the campers in the period "Camp Miasma" series to Little Death's layering, Kris's red riding hood and Billy's "Sunset Boulevard" attire. Composer Alex G ("I Saw the TV Glow") references "Friday the 13th's" 'ki-ki-ki, ha-ha-ha' within his score and contributes original song 'A Pain in the Heart' to the film's soundtrack. At 112 minutes, the film could have used a little trimming in its last act, but that's a minor quibble given all it has to offer. And if we get an air vent as a plot point in a third movie this year (one was a McGuffin in "Spider-Man: Brand New Day"), it will become a very funny trend.
The two stars are perfection together, Anderson expertly shying just clear of camp as her diva persona melts into the warmth of finding her person. Einbinder projects nerdy enthusiasm and a slight awkwardness which grows into a more mature confidence. And while these two center the film, there is a rich layer of support, Jess McLeod ("Normal") hilarious as a Zoomed in studio flack with Dylan Baker as her impatient boss skimming the surface. The film also features "Sorry, Baby's" Eva Victor as Little Death victim DJ Ella Giastic.
"Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma" is both entertaining and provocative on its first viewing, but it the type of film which should continue to offer more rewards upon repeat viewings. It is also Schoenbrun's best film to date.
Mubi released "Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma" in NYC theaters on 8/7/26, expanding in subsequent weeks.
