Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is director Jane Schoenbrun’s most personal film yet—as well as perhaps their most purely enjoyable. Paying homage to disreputable genres, while imbuing its deeply interrogative nature with a sense of genuine play, Schoenbrun’s film reveals a major turning point in the career of this groundbreaking auteur. Filmmaker Kris (Hannah Einbinder) has been tasked with directing a film reboot of the popular “Camp Miasma” horror films, a fictional slasher franchise inspired by the hyper-sexualized—and often transphobic— horror films of Schoenbrun’s youth. While researching her project, Kris tracks down the first film’s “final girl” Billy (Gillian Anderson), now an eccentric, Norma Desmond–like hermit who lives on the site of the very summer camp where the films were shot. Their connection leads to an unexpected emotional and sexual bond that opens up Kris in ways she never could have anticipated, leading to a psychological and physical catharsis.