'Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma' is written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun, and stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson.Ryan Plummer/MUBI/Supplied
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun
Starring Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson
Classification N/A; 112 minutes
Opens in select theatres Aug. 14
Critic’s Pick
Sunset Boulevard filtered through the gore-slicked haze of a hundred cheapo slasher flicks, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a movie that constantly reassures the hardcore movie-lovers out there that there is little that matters in life other than, well, movies.
For those already inclined to agree with that sentiment, director Jane Schoenbrun’s erotic horror fantasia is the easiest of sells, its many hacked-up parts – bits and pieces borrowed from Billy Wilder, Jonathan Demme, Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, David Cronenberg and Friday the 13th’s Sean S. Cunningham – adding up to a whole lot of sexy, sticky fun. And for those audiences who have no idea of or affection for such cinematic creations as Jason Voorhees, Angela Baker or Max Renn, well, there are still enough flashes of ambition and bursts of outrageous ingenuity here to keep your eyes popped and your jaws dropped.
An intricately designed and detailed opening-credit sequence lays out the bones of Schoenbrun’s tale, tracing the history of a long-running (and fictional) horror franchise called Camp Miasma, blood- and sex-soaked flicks following the murder rampage of a supernatural serial killer named Little Death. (Whereas Friday the 13th’s Jason wore a hockey mask, Little Death sports an air-conditioning vent for a head, for reasons that will eventually, if not entirely satisfactorily, be explained.)
While the Camp Miasma franchise enjoyed a successful run in the ’80s and early ’90s, it has since sputtered into creative and financial ruin. Enter Kris (Hacks star Hannah Einbinder), a hot young filmmaker whose latest queer indie drama made such an impression on Hollywood that she has now been tasked with rebooting the Camp Miasma brand for a new generation.
Kris’s big idea for her new instalment of the series is to track down the first film’s star, Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson). One of the horror genre’s typical “final girls,” whose character survived Little Death on-screen, Billy has since retreated from the film industry and become a recluse.
Now taking up residence on the old, largely abandoned campgrounds where the original movie was filmed, Billy seems skeptical of Kris’s intentions for a new film but welcomes her nonetheless for a weekend visit. As the two discuss ideas for the project, they both fall into a nervy game of psychosexual exploration, complete with the spectre of Little Death itself escaping from the movies and into the real world.
In I Saw the TV Glow, Schoenbrun’s tremendously affecting sophomore feature, the trans filmmaker used their nostalgia for such fantastical, metaphor-laden TV series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer to craft an allegory for discovering one’s true identity after a lifetime of suppression. Similarly, the filmmaker uses Teenage Sex and Death to explore what it means to embrace and enjoy sex following transition. It is a singular theme but tidily expands to the universal wish to desire and be desired.
Kris, Schoenbrun’s obvious on-screen stand-in, initially trudges out to visit Billy filled with the kind of crippling self-conscious anxiety that can turn anyone off from intimacy. As played in a clever, sharp performance by Einbinder, Kris radiates awkwardness from head to toe. But once she gets closer to the smoky, enigmatic Billy, and starts to understand just why she got into horror filmmaking in the first place – the genre offers a specific rush when blood pumping turns into blood spurting – Schoenbrun’s film cracks wide open.
Not every dot here connects so neatly to the other. The A/C unit sitting atop Little Death’s body, for example, doesn’t quite add up to the effect its director might have imagined. The name “Little Death” itself – which in French translates to a poetic expression for an orgasm, “la petite mort” – is also indicative of the script’s tendency to aim for the nose and stay there.
And there is one grating scene in which Kris takes a Zoom meeting with Hollywood executives (one of whom is played by a profane Dylan Baker, Schoenbrun subverting the actor’s infamous performance as a sensitive pedophile in Todd Solandz’s 1998 drama Happiness) that derails all too neatly.
But messiness is part of the fun. May the summer of Schoenbrun last a thousand sunsets.