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Several outstanding horror films have been released recently, including this
year’s Leviticus, Backrooms, and
Obsession,
plus last year’s
Sinners. All of
these films may be seen as significant in the future. Another film that may be
seen as important in the future is Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, an arty,
queer, slasher film. But unlike most standard slasher films, this one is not so
much about sex and violence, but instead a meta film about how cinema and slasher
films in particular deal with sex and violence.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is an intelligent murder flick that gives
the genre a progressive, feminist spin. It seems aimed at the same audiences as
Titane,
X,
Maxxxine,
The Substance,
and David Cronenberg’s
The
Shrouds. Like
those films, it attempts to intellectualize the horror genre and make it more
respectable. It offers social and meta commentary alongside its gore, and it
will probably disappoint lovers of the simple, easy-to-follow, straight-ahead
traditional linear horror film, leaving them confused or disappointed. A horror
film director I met at Riot Fest felt the film came off as self-important and
pretentious, but I disagree.
The film has garnered considerable critical acclaim premiering at the
2026 Cannes Film Festival on May 12 as the opening film of the Un Certain Regard
section, where it won the Queer Palm. The film moved out of the festival market
and opened theatrically on August 7 in a few
select theatres to test the waters, and it did well enough to warrant expanding
to more theatres over the next two weeks.
Before Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, the films writer/director
Jane Schoenbrun made two previous films, We’re all Going to the World Fair
(2021), and
I Saw the
TV Glow (2024), the latter of which made my Top 10 film list of that
year. All of her films were critically acclaimed and moderately successful. She
has been touted as one of the most promising young directors, and her films are
already taught in some cinema classes. Also, apart from the Wachowski brothers,
who made The Matrix and
Speed Racer, she/he is
currently the most prominent trans
director, and her preferred pronoun is they.
The films cast features a fresh, lively performance by
Hannah Einbinder in the lead role of Kris Williams. She starred in the film
Seekers of Infinite Love, but she is best known for her acclaimed regular role
in the Emmy-winning show Hacks (2021). She is also the daughter of original SNL
cast member Loraine Neuman. Einbinder is outstanding as a young filmmaker who
loves slasher films, and she seems, in many ways, modeled after director Jane
Schoenbrun. In the film Kris is a beginning filmmaker hired to shoot an origin
story for the "Camp Miasma" series of commercially successful slasher films. She
is a huge fan of the series and has wanted to direct one of the films since she
saw the first one at the tender age of 8. The excitement that she felt seeing
the killer chase the final girl at the end of the first time made her excited in
a way that was more intense and pleasing than anything she ever felt during
intercourse.
But there is a big snag in the plan. She has to convince Billy Preslley, the
actress who played the final girl in the first film, to appear in this one to
seal the deal (like Jaimie Lee Curtis did in Halloween H20), and she is very
reluctant. She has moved on to a life of her own, in seclusion, away from the
celebrity lifestyle. In some ways, she is like the Nora Desmond character in
Sunset Boulevard and has come to represent Hollywood decadence and
disappointment. She lives in Sleepaway Camp, where the first Camp Miasma film
was shot, and she continuously relives her experience making the film as she
watches it over and over in a continuous tape loop, constantly munching on junk
food.
As they talk and watch the films in the series, the director begins to suspect
that the serial killer that the film is based on, who wears, for some reason, a
square heating vent as a hat, is currently at the bottom of a lake. When he
awakens, we get the start of the story that mirrors the plot of the film. So,
whereas in the director’s previous film,
I Saw the
TV Glow, which was a TV
episode within a film, here we get a film within a film. Kris and Billy start a
romantic relationship in which, instead of making love, they reenact scenes from
slasher films to get excited. But how far will they go, and is one of them truly
a killer? You will have to see the film to find out.
Audiences should definitely seek out the film and try to see it on the big
screen, or if that is not possible, it is also worth streaming. Although it is
not a perfect film, it is lively and intellectually stimulating. It deals with
some of the same issues as the Scream franchise, but none of those films is as
thematically rich, intellectually stimulating, or modern as this one.
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