‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ Review: I Saw the Twin Peaks Glow [A-] Cannes
When watching a film by director Jane Schoenbrun, one can’t help but dive back into their own past. As their protagonist Kris (Hannah Einbinder) explains their relationship to the fictional Camp Miasma film franchise that she’s been hired to resurrect, I couldn’t help but think of myself as a young boy from the late 1990s who would wait till his parents were asleep and turn back on the TV in his room and surf the channels looking for something to watch. One night burned in my mind was a late screening of The Wachowskis’ Bound, the neo-noir masterpiece that I had no business seeing at such a young age (a line uttered once or twice within the film by Kris about the original Miasma film), and yet, was my first experience seeing a queer relationship on the screen. Much like Kris, my mind was glued to Corky and Violet’s world, and the bond between two people fighting for their love and freedom to be unapologetically themselves; while also trying to get a little cash to escape as well (we support women’s rights and wrongs here). It’s the personal connection to media, to art that Schoenbrun understands better than any modern filmmaker; they bind our nostalgic history as a tool to define who we really are and what our desires will be. In the case of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, they use this tactic to create a candy filled, blood soaked, sexually discovery commentary that thoroughly examines the personal hold the horror, slasher genre has on the queer community and how it’s also allowed Schoenbrun to make the most confident film of their career; capping a perfect conclusion to their “Screens’ Trilogy.”
When Kris Williams, a young queer filmmaker who recently had an independent film breakout at Sundance and gained the respects of critics (though few audiences got to see it), is given the chance to level up and tackle a bigger project that dabbles in existing IP, she decides to remake the camp-horror classic, Camp Miasma; Schoenbrun’s send up to horror franchises like Psycho, Friday the 13th, and Sleepaway Camp; the latter of which is heavily influential to the lore of Miasma. The original film Schoenbrun centers around a familiar 80s horror storyline of a bunch of teenagers at a camp who are partying, having sex, and creating lasting memories within their wet, hot summer break. But before they can have an endless night of fun, a mysterious, masked creature known as “Little Death” (Jack Haven) emerges from the bottom of the lake, carrying a sharp spear, looking to spoil the festivities by killing one horny teen at a time. With the headgear of a ventilation system that feels eerily similar to Pyramid Head from the Silent Hill video game franchises and a patient, gory presence that recalls the work of Jason Voorhees, Schoenbrun gives their baddie a cartoonish level of violent delights with every kill they collect, leading all the way to the last two victims, where he spares her, leaving one last victim to remember the events that took place that night. As the opening credits of the picture blasts a cover of R.E.M.’s “Nightswimming,” we witness history and the events that set off a franchise that was a smash hit, till it was watered down with sequels, reboots, reimaginings, geeky, cheap merchandise; basically what terrible lesson that Hollywood learns when they get a hit, trying to recreate the magic till they drain the original for every ounce of nostalgia they can till the well dries up.
In wanting to find a way to tell her version of a brand new take on Camp Miasma, Kris hatches up an idea to speak with Billy Preston (Gillian Anderson), the actress who played the final girl in the film that refused to come back for the sequels, in large part because of what the events of the film, both in front and behind the camera, did to her (another connection this film take from the Sleepaway Camp films have as their lead never returned till over twenty years later for a direct to video reboot attempt). As Kris makes her way out to Billy’s place for their meeting to discuss the film, we come to know our young director is very nervous about meeting her screen ideal, a figure she saw late night on her television screen not too much dissimilar to the one I had in my bedroom, watching Little Death take his death stick and try to kill his victims in ridiculous fashion. But in her retirement, Billy’s become reclusive, as she’s described by Kris’ partner Mari (Jasmin Savoy Brown) over the phone as “Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard” more than once, and that they are concerned that Kris might walk away from the experience disappointed. As Kris drives to the coordinates that Billy has sent her, she comes to realize that their meeting place is none other than Camp Tivoli, the location where they shot most of the films. Like a living monument to cinematic world she fell in love with, Kris lets go of her connections to the outside world, and zeros in on very word that comes out of Billy’s mouth, who appears in the main cabin looking like a femme fatale out of a classic noir thriller, with a Southern accent that makes one think of Dolly Parton (serving up a tray of finger licking good KFC tenders with various dipping sauces) with the lingering sex appeal of Jessica Rabbit mixed with the unpredictability of Hannibal Lector looking at Clarice in The Silence of the Lambs. In a career littered with iconic roles, Anderson’s Billy is one for the ages, and lands the veteran actor as juicy of a role as ever, playing a woman seductive forces are hiding that teenage actress scorned by the horrific trauma of her famous past, reliving the moment she lost her innocence over and over again for the pleasure of audiences around the world. In doing so it makes one recall the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween franchise (including a killer joke about her lore), and the journey she and other final girls have taken in being the inspiration for generations while acknowledging the toll this fame has had on them.
In telling Billy the rough outline of her vision for the new version of Miasma, Kris starts to reveal more and more about herself and less so about the movie she wants to make. It becomes clear that she doesn’t have a full story created or script written, but she’s going on the goal of what she wants the project’s theme to feel like; desire and overcoming one’s fear. In order to create that feeling on the big screen for her film, she has to do that in real life by giving herself over to the world of Camp Miasma, learning about Billy’s history with her encounter with Little Death, and how it connects back to that first time Kris was sitting on that bedroom floor, watching the TV glow with a euphoric feeling that she’s been wanting her whole life; the one found in the eyes of Billy right before Little Death attempted to stab her with his shape blade. As this is unfolding, filmgoers will start to experience the generational acting talent that has become Hannah Einbinder. Over the course of her Emmy-winning work on the HBO Max series Hacks, we’ve seen Einbinder’s evolution of an actor grow, willing to take her character to places of queer representation that we’ve rarely seen on the small screen. Within that work, all of that has built up to this performance that showcases her ability to understand the balance of humor needed for Kris to work within a world she is fully starting to embrace, and allow for the audience to buy into her full transformation into natural self by the end; someone comfortable enough in their own skin, willing to take what she wants, and who she wants without fear or worry of what society might think. Her chemistry with Anderson is both steamy, electric, and emotionally complex, much like the work of Gershon and Tilly within Bound, as Billy slowly seduces Kris to give what she’s always fantasized about; her own petit mort and close-up with Little Death.
With modern culture obsessed with books, television, and films, fandoms are out of control with their online, one-way relationships that seem to separate the admiration for the art and artist from the possessive people who make characters or creatives their realities, the easiest path to exploring this topic would be to either fully embrace it or condemn it completely outright. Instead Schoenbrun combines both sides of the issue and forms something new within the middle, showing that this connection to our nostalgic, sometimes even problematic, dated media is a portal to a version of ourselves that we have to explore, and in doing so, we will find our real selves, willing to let go of their fears to dive into our deepest, most honest desires, even if that means confronting the baggage that comes with it. To get Kris to find her purpose to make the film, and understand her connection with the source material and its creature within it, she, along with the audience, must dive deep to achieve that form of perfect clarity that can lead to personal liberation; abolition of true mind, body, soul of who we were always meant to be, filled with the kinks and scares that make us unique. It’s a bold strategy that pays off with violent, intoxicating delights.
Beyond the events on screen, what makes Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma a remarkable piece of entertaining, thought provoking cinema is the meta conversation the film’s events are having not within themselves, but from the voice of the director who has created this project. In coming up with the idea for their third feature, Schoenbrunspoke about their longing to explore the theme of learning to embrace and enjoy sex after transition, while inwardly observing their experience of being uncomfortable, with one of humanity’s essential needs of life, before their transition. In using Kris as a vessel, Schoenbrun takes us down their most personal film to date, another bold trans allegory that makes for the perfect companion piece to I Saw the TV Glow, in which they examine of not being able to break through their wall (or TV screen) to become the person they’ve always meant to be, and elevating it with this bold third film that graduates those themes and says loudly, there is nothing to fear or hide, that it’s time to take back control of the narrative, and let it be known that transness isn’t monstrous, but rather it contains as much beauty, urges, wants, needs as the lives of cis gendered individuals. Inside the film also lies Schoenbrun’s most elaborate directorial vision to date, as their use 80’s and 90’s needle drops blends through the metaphorically sexual, campy, cartoonish violence that Little Death lays down throughout the film, which is well-balanced by a mostly acoustic score from Alex G. An extensive, one-take sequence of carnage by Little Death struck a reminder to the “I Lied to You” scene within last year’s Sinners, as Schoenbrun and their cinematographer Eric Yue and editor Graham Mason conduct a blood symphony to the tune of the Counting Crowes “Long December,” showcasing this iconic scene of the film within the mind of Kris and using a song from her childhood to convey the opening of her awakening with a viewing of the film she’s, inwardly, seeing for the first time. It’s breathtaking work to see this young director already showcasing themselves at the height of their power, and what they are like as a storyteller when they are at their most confident.
Leading up to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Schoenbrun spoke about how hard it was to get Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma made given that its bold originality, unapologetically queer storytelling, gory violence, and sexually content doesn’t scream a greenlight from most studios nowadays. But given how blank checks are handed out to directors who don’t push the form nearly as revolutionary as Schoenbrun does and makes art that will last in the culture for decades to come, it’s a frustrating reality of the work still needed to be done secure the same privileges for cis directors as much as trans directors. But Schoenbrun takes this in stride, using her personal experiences of rejection of this project to poke fun at the studio elitists that have the hands in the creative decision making processes, and shows them for the frauds that they are. It reminds one of how Lana Wachowski used the same storytelling strategy with The Matrix Resurrections to speak to the hypocrisies of an industry obsessed with the bottom line rather than the very thing that made their IP so special; artistic freedom and the unique mind of a visionary. With Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Jane Schoenbrun has fully formed into a definitive voice of their generation, one that perfectly blends their personality with an expert blend of humor, melancholy, and exhilaration.
Grade: A-
This review is from the 2026 Cannes Film Festival where Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section. MUBI will release the film theatrically on August 7.
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