Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma | Review |Hope Madden
The most gloriously horny horror film of the year
Jane Schoenbrun has made a career out of exploring identity and transformation through horror, but their latest feature swaps the dreamy melancholy of We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow for something far more tender and accepting. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is not what you expect. It is not a slasher, not a spoof, and not a satire.
It is a sexual awakening brought about by Gillian Anderson, and it is the nerdiest horror film you will ever see. Schoenbrun’s stand-in Kris, played by a wonderfully vulnerable Hannah Einbinder, is a queer filmmaker tasked with rebooting a problematic slasher IP. She travels to the actual camp from the original film to convince its Final Girl Billy, played by the great Gillian Anderson, to return to cinema. What follows is several days of movies, junk food, pot, and deeply sensuous slasher nerdery.
The film is littered with gender iconography, Sleepaway Camp trivia, and nods to Carol J. Clover’s Men, Women, and Chain Saws. It is funny, incredibly bloody, and unabashedly in love with the aggressively sexual and sexually ambiguous slasher.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma review: Schoenbrun delivers slasher nerd nirvana
Don’t make the mistake of assuming Jane Schoenbrun’s new feature Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a slasher. Or a slasher spoof. Or a satire about slashers.
It’s a sexual awakening brought about by Gillian Anderson. Obviously.
Up-and-coming (pun intended) queer filmmaker Kris (a wondrously vulnerable Hannah Einbinder) has been tapped to reboot a problematic slasher IP. She hopes to convince the Final Girl of the first installment, Billy (Anderson the Great), to return to cinema and star in the film. Turns out, Billy’s a recluse who bought and now lives in the camp from the original film. She hosts Kris for several days of movies, junk food, pot, and deeply sensuous slasher nerdery.
This is—and I say this with as much delight as possible—the nerdiest horror movie ever. How nerdy? The very second you hear yourself saying “that’s a split diopter,” Schoenbrun stand-in Kris says it out loud. When Kris apologizes for asking too personal a question of Billy, fearing it could be a #metoo violation, Billy replies, “I auditioned for The Burning. You know who made that, right?”
Nerds! And the best kind of nerds. Horror movie nerds! Sleepaway Camp trivia meets Friday the 13th nostalgia in a gloriously queer, brazenly shameless, wonderfully horny new horror film.
Like their last two features, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma concerns itself with transformation, identity, and horror. But Schoenbrun’s latest drops the dreamy melancholy of the previous films in favor of something tender, beautiful, and accepting.
The gender iconography littered across every scene finds its zenith in Little Death (that name!), the transgender marauder with a double-blade spear and an air vent helmet. (Honestly, if you haven’t read Carol J. Clover’s Men, Women, and Chain Saws, you should. Schoenbrun certainly has.)
TSADACM, like Schoenbrun’s last two films, is a gorgeous watercolor fever dream. It’s funny, incredibly bloody, and unabashedly in love with the aggressively sexual and sexually ambiguous slasher, no matter how problematic. Perhaps because it’s problematic.
The film is not just a wonderful walk through another person’s psyche, although it is that. It’s also a fascinating, deeply satisfying kick of a horror movie. You should go.
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