Released: 7th August
Seen: 26th October
The 80s slasher boom was an absolutely fascinating period of history when it comes to horror that can be looked at from so many angles. There’s the obvious business angle where films were effectively made by throwing darts at a calendar and making something around the date that it landed on, how many films essentially exist because the tax breaks in certain countries made them so cheap that it was almost like printing money or just how that era was a breeding ground for talent getting to break in with cheap films that could get high returns. Then there’s the actual stories of the films themselves, how the creation of the Final Girl inadvertently created a feminist icon, how these stories often revolved around sex and death being intertwined just as the AIDS crisis was ramping up or how they often took real-world fears and events and turned them up to an 11. For a genre filled with killer dolls, dream-based serial killers and a lot of summer camp hijinks, it is a surprisingly deep category of film that people have talked about a lot over the years since. Now it’s filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun’s turn to take us through their unique perspective of this period of cinema as a trans woman who clearly loved the genre of films that she’s pointing to with Teenage Sex & Death At Camp Miasma, even for all the parts of them that didn’t age well.
Teenage Sex & Death At Camp Miasma follows a young filmmaker named Kris (Hannah Einbinder) who has been given possibly the biggest job of her career, resurrecting the 80s classic slasher franchise Camp Miasma. Turns out Kris is somewhat of a superfan of the franchise, knows all the lore about the film and its iconic killer Little Death, has seen every entry including the weird ones where they go into space and just seems to love everything about the franchise… well, almost everything. She also knows that several elements of the franchise have aged badly, from Little Death’s notably transphobic origin to the way women in general are presented in the franchise but she hopes that her update to the genre will be able to grapple with that history and update it for a modern audience but to do that she wants to still honour the past and so she goes to talk to the former star of the franchise, Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson) who has become somewhat of a recluse and lives on the old campgrounds where the original Camp Miasma film was shot. Billy and Kris start getting to know each other, connecting at first through their shared enjoyment of the Camp Miasma films but slowly turning into something a little more… something so intense and passionate it could only happen in a strange 80s horror movie.
One thing you can tell pretty much instantly from Teenage Sex & Death At Camp Miasma is that the writer/director has absolutely studied this era of the horror genre and has serious things to point out about it. Seeing how much obvious love there is for this specific genre of film while also seeing it be pointedly critiqued (Things like calling out the transphobia that ran rampant in that era of film, calling out the blunt sexism and even just reminding everyone Harvey Weinstein is responsible for The Burning, a touchstone of the genre) makes for a fascinating experience. This is one of those films that has things to say and isn’t gonna hold back its pointed message, but manages to blend it in seamlessly with this story that feels like a mix between Sunset Boulevard and Friday the 13th on acid.
It’s also just wild how unapologetically sexual this film is. I don’t even know if I wanna call it sexy, but it’s definitely sexual. Every scene with the two leads is so charged with sex that watching Gillian Anderson dipping KFC into dipping sauces turns into the most erotic thing you’ve ever seen, the link between sex and death (oh hey, that’s in the title) is so blunt that they don’t even pretend it isn’t part of this film, they discuss how these films are all about flesh and fluids and make it as pointed as they can. They also give it a kind of power that such acts don’t tend to have in these films. Friday the 13th movies have tits shown in them because the producers demanded it, they literally hired actresses because of their cup size but this film shows breasts to make a point about the power and sensuality of the women and how comfortable they are. There’s a raw passionate tension that just flows between the two leads, making this one of the most fascinating lesbian love stories you will find.
Now of course if you want to ignore the interesting messaging of Teenage Sex & Death At Camp Miasma and the intense layers underneath it, it also helps that it’s just a damn beautiful movie. The large matte shots of the cabins look like something out of a classic MGM film where you can kind of tell that you’re looking at a giant painting but it’s so pretty that you don’t care, the kills that are as heightened and absurd as they are beautiful and the way every single person is photographed to look truly flawless. It’s a gorgeous movie to look at, every single frame is meticulous and detailed. At times I won’t pretend that it doesn’t get distracting, the scenes that are meant to take place in the Camp Miasma series look too good to be an 80s slasher film, but really looking TOO good is the kind of thing that’s not a really big problem all things considered.
What really helps make Teenage Sex & Death At Camp Miasma work is that it manages to seamlessly blend this fascinating commentary on the genre, be an actual slasher film in itself, have a lesbian romance storyline and a meta film about the troubles of updating a genre that contains so much baggage. It juggles so many balls in the air and keeps them there with expert ease to create a genuinely fascinating work of art.
Teenage Sex & Death At Camp Miasma is a truly unique take on a classic genre, one that honors and critiques it at the same time. It’s captivating, commanding your undivided attention which it more than deserves and delivers on a film that feels like it could only be made by this specific artistic voice. Jane Schoenbrun as a director took me a little while to properly get into, but now I’m fully on board with their truly brilliant and unique style and I am excited to see just what else they have hidden at the bottom of their intellectual lake.
