{"id":447318,"date":"2026-05-13T20:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/447318\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T20:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:46:10","slug":"teenage-sex-and-death-at-camp-miasma-review-jane-schoenbrun-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/447318\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ Review: Jane Schoenbrun Returns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visionary filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun<\/a>\u2019s work is many things, but you wouldn\u2019t up to this point have necessarily called it optimistic or accessible. The enthusiastically queer<\/a>, genre-literate director used their feature debut \u201cWe\u2019re All Going to the World\u2019s Fair<\/a>\u201d as not just a love letter to internet creepypastas and the scary stories we tell our young selves for comfort, but also as a coming-out missive. With the making of that film<\/a> came Schoenbrun\u2019s revelation of their own nonbinary transness. Next painting on an even grander, more metaphysical canvas, their second feature \u2014 the wounding and masterful metaphor-as-movie \u201cI Saw the TV Glow<\/a>\u201d \u2014 used millennial nostalgia to construct a self-portrayal of their own gender dysphoria.<\/p>\n

\"'Obsession'\"<\/a> \"LOS<\/a> <\/p>\n

With Schoenbrun\u2019s slippery latest film, the sapphic slice of cinema \u201cTeenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma<\/a>,\u201d comes a statement about what happens after gender dysphoria\u2019s annihilation \u2014 a reflection on the sexual unease experienced once you\u2019ve finally fit into your body but perhaps don\u2019t know what to do with it. The ways in which we\u2019ve gotten so far in our own heads that sex is now more concept than carnal, surrendering act sets the stage for an erotic explosion in this cerebral, pop-colored tale centered on 29-year-old filmmaker Kris (Hannah Einbinder<\/a>, who\u2019s internalized the role wonderfully). Bookish and bright, she has been optioned to direct a \u201cwoke\u201d 21st-century reboot of a piece of zombie IP, a transphobic \u201880s slasher movie franchise called \u201cCamp Miasma.\u201d But in this film, a for-hire industry assignment opens a portal into sexual awakening with help from the franchise\u2019s original final girl, played by Gillian Anderson.<\/p>\n

In the fictional film world of the \u201cCamp Miasma\u201d franchise, the central villain is not a masked Jason type, but instead a bloodthirsty ghost known as Little Death (which is also, as you probably know, a colloquial bon mot meaning orgasm). Seemingly inspired by \u201cSilent Hill\u2019s\u201d Pyramid Head<\/a> but with an HVAC suit for an outfit and an industrial air vent for a helmet (one that resembles an early cinematograph movie camera whenever you see \u201cI Saw the TV Glow\u201d breakout Jack Haven\u2019s face poking out of it), the spear-armed Little Death is the vengeful spirit of a drowned former sleepaway camper. Once teased for their transness, Little Death is now eternally doomed to the bottom of the lake at Camp Tivoli when not seasonally resurfacing to kill horny teenagers (and, of course, doomed to be reincarnated in endless sequels).<\/p>\n

The metaphor bluntly invoked by this villain\u2019s winking sobriquet, for one thing, tips to Schoenbrun\u2019s cheeky embrace of just how literal their latest film means to be \u2014 a dramatic focus pull from the allegorical universe of \u201cI Saw the TV Glow.\u201d At the same time, you can view the work as a visceral slasher send-up, a stylish academic exercise about gender expression and inquiry in horror iconography, or as just a plain old, super fun, future cult lesbian classic. Either way, it will take multiple viewings of this film to fully embed yourself inside it \u2014 body, brains, and all.<\/p>\n

As many viewings, potentially, as Billy Presley (the mighty Anderson, in a feat of dream-casting for an \u201cX-Files\u201d fan such as Schoenbrun) replays of the original \u201cCamp Miasma\u201d movie she keeps in a film canister. She was the first film\u2019s star who declined roles in the many crappy sequels, who now lives a hermetic life on the actual campground the movie was shot on, not so much drunk on her own legacy but still living inside the world that built it. During a wintry white-out, Kris drives to her home to hopefully entreat Billy to star in the remake Kris is developing, which is meant to wipe the slate clean of the many bad sequels and reboots. (We get a peek at these during the charmingly cluttered, immersive opening credits sequence, taking us through the franchise history with news clippings and the spines of fake VHS tapes.)<\/p>\n

Styled as a Norma Desmond figure but with far more inner security and peace than Gloria Swanson\u2019s delusional faded film star, Anderson\u2019s Presley is a marvelously elegant, living, walking myth with a husky Southern accent, beautiful velvety clothes, a fedora, and a screen entrance that indeed says \u201cI\u2019m ready for the first of my many close-ups.\u201d She\u2019s certainly the most feminine creation in Schoenbrun\u2019s oeuvre, her bold silhouette in sharp contrast to Einbinder\u2019s diffident, and relatively androgynized Kris (like the actress\u2019 character on \u201cHacks,\u201d Kris is also queer and polyamorous, but the similarities end there). Erotic chemistry forms quicker than creative kinship, as filmmaker Kris soon realizes that not only does she definitely want to cast Billy, she also definitely wants to get fucked by her, too.<\/p>\n

This all sounds like a lot, and it is, but even still, I\u2019ve barely penetrated the layers of this bold, often spellbinding, and always shapeshifting new film. This is far from Schoenbrun\u2019s most accessible work; indeed, it may not be quite as accessible as it thinks it is. But where this complicated film finds accessibility is in how deeply personal and rooted to the filmmaker\u2019s own interests and pop culture palate it is, whether the whispered cover of REM\u2019s \u201cNightswimming\u201d that plays over the end credits, or the most unexpected marriage of a Counting Crows song to cinematic material since \u201cCruel Intentions\u201d \u2014 and during an especially gory killing spree. As in \u201cTV Glow,\u201d Schoenbrun shows themselves to be a child of the \u201990s at heart and head.<\/p>\n

But the more \u201cTeenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma\u201d reveals itself, the more it blooms, the more it becomes apparent that this is a film not really about horror movies, not really about pop culture, but actually about, yes, sour gummy candies. About enjoyment, play, and pleasure. I once had a therapist tell me that, in matters of the bedroom, \u201cWhen you\u2019re in the movie, you shouldn\u2019t be watching the movie.\u201d It would appear that Kris \u2014 especially in her relationship with partner Mari (Jasmin Savoy Brown), who\u2019s more invested in the polyamorous arrangement that seems to burn Kris just a little bit \u2014 has spent a lifetime \u201cwatching\u201d the movie of herself rather than living in it, and that\u2019s made her sexually stunted. Has this woman had an orgasm before? At least none of the kind eventually described by Billy over candlelight.<\/p>\n

\"Teenage\u2018Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma\u2019MUBI<\/p>\n

Has living a life as a spectator of movies and living through them, mentally casting herself as the characters in, say, the \u201cCamp Miasma\u201d franchise to retreat from social rejection, turned her into a voyeur of her own self? Schoenbrun\u2019s movie is an invitation to give into your body \u2014 but the film is at the same time very much wrapped up inside its own head, which makes for a prismatic, woozy viewing experience.<\/p>\n

In terms of craftsmanship, \u201cTeenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma\u201d is through and through a Jane Schoenbrun movie; there is absolutely no one else, alive or dead, who could have made a feature that looks and feels like this one. The pas de deux between Billy and Kris is entrancingly sexy, and the film\u2019s love relationship to movie magic is just as romantic, from Anderson\u2019s grand-dame costuming to the matte paintings that serve as backdrops in both the film-within-the-film and the one containing it. Brooklyn hipster-adored musician Alex G returns to contribute melancholic, acoustic songcraft, while \u201cTV Glow\u201d cinematographer Eric Yue delivers on Schoenbrun\u2019s promise of making the kind of cozily sinister movie you\u2019d watch furtively in your friend\u2019s basement during adolescent sleepovers.<\/p>\n

But \u201cTeenage Sex and Death\u201d is also about Schoenbrun\u2019s relationship to their own work, and most certainly their experience post-\u201cWorld\u2019s Fair\u201d and even circa \u201cTV Glow\u201d in what I can imagine were fraught meetings with executives hoping to channel but also commercialize their singular voice. Hilariously, Kris is hounded by her hyperactive, industry-Kool-Aided agent (\u201cSNL\u201d star Sarah Sherman) and in one scene has a full-on \u201cInland Empire\u201d-style, lost-in-the-sauce meltdown during an executive Zoom call in which the barrier between her project and her person gets ripped apart. Schoenbrun\u2019s trenchant reflections on an industry that may have tried to put them into a box they would never fit in so much as go near make for the film\u2019s sharpest satirical touches that will play wildly for an industry crowd.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been mesmerizing to watch Schoenbrun not only come out in real time over their last two films, but now come so much into their own powers as a storyteller. \u201cTeenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma\u201d is a heady entertainment, and yet it takes so much pleasure in the craft and care of moviemaking \u2014 and also in reminding us that, hello, pleasure is not a concept to be over-intellectualized, but something you can actually feel in your body. They\u2019re asking us to wake up and give in, so why not?<\/p>\n

Grade: B+<\/p>\n

\u201cTeenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma\u201d premiered at the 2026 Cannes<\/a> Film Festival. Mubi will release the film theatrically starting August 7.<\/p>\n

Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0reviews<\/a>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to our newsletter In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Visionary filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun\u2019s work is many things, but you wouldn\u2019t up to this point have necessarily called…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[47241,93,1043,61,60,81465,270,564,141047],"class_list":["post-447318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-cannes","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jane-schoenbrun","tag-movies","tag-reviews","tag-teenage-sex-and-death-at-camp-miasma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}