We caught Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma at its Canadian premiere at Fantasia Film Festival, stumbled home at one in the morning, and we are still buzzing about it. This is the first film we are covering from this year’s festival, and it is a big one to lead with. Jane Schoenbrun’s latest hits a wide theatrical release on August 7, so if you are reading this before then, consider it a heads-up: clear your calendar.
Schoenbrun is the writer-director behind We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021) and I Saw the TV Glow, and their work tends to circle the same question of self and identity. What is different here is the mood. Where I Saw the TV Glow sat in repression and melancholy; this one leans into joy. Schoenbrun said exactly that during the Q and A after the screening, and you feel it in every frame.
A Slasher Homage That Knows Exactly What It Is Doing
The opening sequence alone is worth the price of admission. In about four minutes, it runs the entire life cycle of a fictional slasher franchise: the gory underground original, the endless sequels, the one where they go to space, the video games, the little bobbleheads, the arcade tie-in, the graphic novel, and finally the inevitable reboot. We were laughing before the story even started.
Camp Miasma is a clear love letter to Friday the 13th (one of the fake headlines early on reads something like “Move over Jason, Little Death is coming to take over the world“). The sequels have matching titles, the third one is in 3D, the whole bit. Meaghan clocked that the sixth Camp Miasma film features a final girl named Megan, same as the real Friday the 13th Part 6. “My namesake is there for a reason,” she said, and honestly, respect.
What makes it land is the balance. The film pokes fun at how ridiculous these franchises get while showing real love for the subgenre at the same time. We all know part 12 is garbage. We love it anyway. Schoenbrun gets that, and the whole movie is built on it.
Kris, Billy, and a Reboot That Becomes Something Else
Hannah Einbinder plays Kris, a queer filmmaker with some indie buzz who lands the chance to reboot Camp Miasma, a dormant “zombie IP” she happens to be obsessed with. It is a dream gig. Part of the deal is a meeting with Billy Preston, the original film’s final girl, played by Gillian Anderson.
Billy never came back for the sequels. She went reclusive, quit acting, and vanished into an air of mystery, so meeting her is a massive deal for Kris. Anderson plays her as a full Norma Desmond figure, and she is having the time of her life doing it. We are never mad to see Gillian Anderson in anything, and she is fantastic here.
The two women come together professionally, and then things go somewhere much stranger. For Kris, the project turns into a real exploration of self, both as a creator finding her voice and as a queer woman working through some blocks around sex and intimacy.
Kris is in a polyamorous relationship with Mari (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and is not nearly as at peace with it as she claims. What unfolds between Kris and Billy is, in Arthur’s words
The weirdest way, the most insane way
To break through all of that. We loved it anyway.
The Cast Is Stacked
Jack Haven returns to the Schoenbrun world after playing Maddy in I Saw the TV Glow, this time as the killer, Little Death. You barely see their face, and it does not matter; the whole performance is physical, and it is excellent. We are always glad when Jack Haven shows up.
Jasmin Savoy Brown (Yellowjackets, the recent Scream requels) plays Mari. Sarah Sherman turns up as an agent who never gets a name, which we found genuinely funny. Patrick Fischler plays Rudolph, a harbinger type who exists mostly to tell everyone they are doomed. And keep an eye out for Kevin McDonald as the county sheriff. He is a Montreal guy and a Kids in the Hall legend (he also voices Pleakley in Lilo & Stitch), so seeing him pop up made us very happy.
Not Sure What to Watch?
Answer 4 questions, get curated horror movies to watch.
Where Sex and Death Meet
Here is the clever bit we cannot stop thinking about. The killer is named Little Death. Say that in French and you get “la petite mort,” an old expression for an orgasm. We are honestly surprised nobody raised it during the Q and A (Meaghan was too shy to ask). Once you catch it, the whole title clicks into place, and you see how the film keeps braiding sex and violence together on purpose.
That is the engine of the movie. It is tongue-in-cheek, but it is smart, and it earns the strangeness. The film also does not flinch from the ugly history baked into a lot of old slashers. It talks openly about how these movies could be homophobic and transphobic in their bones, the way Sleepaway Camp gets celebrated for its twist ending while pushing something pretty gross underneath. Camp Miasma folds that reckoning right into its own lore, and it does it without lecturing you.
Our friend Raf from Stabbed and Bothered (go follow him) put it best after the screening: the film is really about how, when we are running from parts of ourselves, it gets easy to disappear into the media we love. Kris sometimes finds it easier to pretend she is one of the Camp Miasma characters. That is the whole ballgame, and it is beautifully done.
The Little Details That Stuck With Us
Schoenbrun and their team went absurdly hard on the world-building. There is a wind-up toy of the killer, Little Death, that waddles across the floor, and Meaghan wants one immediately. “Can I have one?” Fair.
During the credits, you can spot a Camp Miasma board game, and here is the wild part: someone on the production design team built a fully playable version, complete with a board, characters, a rule book, and an actual goal. Schoenbrun did not even realize it worked until the crew told them.
That’s fucking awesome.
Arthur said.
Then there is Little Death’s design, which is a whole thing. Picture a transparent hazmat suit with a box on the head that has a smaller box inside it, then a smaller one, all the way in, like a recursive square. The weapon is a giant spear that they can lift a body on with one finger and wave around like a flag. The kills in the movie within the movie are gloriously over the top; one decapitation turns into a six-foot fountain of blood. The color palette, the set design, the posters, the fonts, the overacting in the fake clips: it all rules.
Our Digs
Both of us landed on 8 out of 10 digs, easily. Arthur gave it an extra dig for how unexpectedly funny it was, describing the score as “given like a fry to a seagull” (“that’s not a saying, but it is now”). Meaghan had “no additional notes” and might bump it up on a rewatch.
If you loved I Saw the TV Glow, this is the same brain working in a brighter, funnier, more straightforward mode. If you love slashers, you are going to have a blast picking apart every reference. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma hits theaters August 7, and we cannot recommend it enough. Gary the ghoul is already digging a grave in its honor.