Jane Schoenbrun Takes us to the Queer Summer Slasher of our Fantasies
DIRECTED BY JANE SCHOENBRUN/2026
Director and writer Jane Schoenbrun once pitched the idea of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma as Portrait of a Lady on Fire set within a Friday the 13th film. Any cinephile familiar with Schoenbrun’s work would not be overly shocked by this bonkers concept, as it fits the mold of the rest of their distinctly original work. The finished product is as unique as the initial logline suggests, especially in this age of media oversaturated with nostalgia bait. A little rough around the edges and entirely unconcerned with presenting as anything but deranged, Camp Miasma is a bloody love ballad to the slasher genre that takes a bold stab at interpreting the intense relationship between fear, arousal, death, and sex.
In an overflowing wasteland of resurrected IP, an unnamed Hollywood studio has granted queer indie director Kris (Hannah Einbinder) the task of revitalizing a dated slasher series in the same vein as Friday the 13th and Scream. 29-years-old and equipped with the gleaming fresh eyes of a pure ingénue, our protagonist embraces this assignment with the devotion expected of a lifetime fan. The first step to crafting the project whisks Kris across the border and onto the shockingly real set of her childhood obsession. Waiting for her inside the haunting remains of the campground from the fictional Camp Miasma is Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson) herself – the final girl from the original hit 80’s slasher. A borderline recluse, the former horror icon has chosen a life of seclusion on the very grounds that once held the tantalizing promise of a future of fame. High on the surreal emotions of meeting her childhood crush face-to-face, Kris’s brief business trip evolved into an intense sexual exploration that defies the natural laws of reality.
If nothing else, let it be said that Jane Schoenbrun’s work is a masterclass in understanding genre on a fundamental level and the eternal effect of decades of bygone pop culture. In I Saw the TV Glow, they utilized the hypnotic visuals of 90’s television programs to effectively establish a haunting environment filled with uncanny imagery. The otherworldly aesthetics and claustrophobic gloom have been ditched for extravagant bloodshed, sensual summer nights, and a healthy dose of needle-drops. The opening montage of VHS tapes, clippings of newspaper reviews, and crude film posters is a feast of cinema nostalgia. Each element that has come to be distinctively definitive of 80’s slasher films is meticulously included, even down to the gritty camera quality. It’s quite campy – in more ways than one. The genuine attention to detail suggests a level of dedication that places the film somewhere between spoof territory and heartfelt homage.
The guts and gore are delightful, but the real attraction here is the shining star-power of Schoenbrun’s leading ladies. Einbinder and Anderson have an electric chemistry which makes the dance between Kris and Billy addictive to witness. In her best performance since the recent conclusion of Hacks, Einbinder embodies the Sundance prodigy’s internal struggle with her latent sexual desires and her inability to vocalize her wants. At Billy’s prodding, Kris describes the sensation of clinical detachment that accompanies the act and the mental block that inhibits her from finding release. As her more experienced counterpart, Billy encourages her companion to enjoy escaping into the fantasy and yielding to her body’s natural, visceral urges. Their banter flows with natural ease as Kris soft launches her movie pitch and Billy challenges her well-crafted, intellectualized responses in an effort to discover the human beneath. It is no shock when the two women cave into their rapidly developing feelings. While their intimate scenes are sprinkled with lighthearted humor, there is a genuine tenderness in these interactions as they navigate their convoluted emotions towards sex together.
This fluid conversation around the complexity of sexuality is the essential core of Camp Miasma. A number of audience members will appreciate the playfully poetic euphemism sprinkled within the narrative. “Little death” is a cheeky French term for the female orgasm, and coincidentally the name of the haunting villain of the Miasma series. Clothed entirely in a plastic suit (perhaps another suggestive nod to contraceptives) with a head reminiscent of an air vent, this monster emerges from the depths of the lake to go on a blood soaked rampage. Wielding their spear with deadly accuracy, Little Death (played by the fantastic Jack Haven) slaughters a house of camp counselors as cheery music swells in the background in a particularly fun sequence. In typical Schoenbrun fashion, the killer takes a metaphorical swing at the harmful archetype of the “cross-dressing killer” or “trans killer”. Popularized by such iconic horror staples as Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs, this trope demonizes their antagonists by suggesting their non-traditional gender expression correlates directly with their vicious psychotic urges. Little Death seems to slot neatly into that category, until Schoenbrun flips the script. The euphoric massacre plays as a cinematic middle-finger to decades of transphobia as our villain takes control of the screen like a star. Camp Miasma portrays the spooky boogeyman as a physical representation of the ultimate crescendo of ecstasy that much of humanity craves. In a single name, the film has already interlocked the twin sensations of fear and pleasure.
Sensuality also becomes the vessel that guides our protagonists to their final destination. About halfway through the movie, Kris and Billy migrate to the campground’s private cinema to watch the original Camp Miasma together. This is the precise moment where the structure of reality begins to fray and the fantasy blends in. We flip between scenes from the fictional 80’s classic to watching our initial subjects watching and commentating on the material. The film-within-a-film approach here feels voyeuristic, bordering between pervy and erotic. It sets the stage for Kris to explain her dissociative episodes during intercourse, and how she views herself as Little Death moments before claiming their next victims. Suddenly the audience are the ones behind the air vent as the killer slowly creeps up on a young Billy Presley losing her virginity. The idea that we are both the murderer and the victim is played out as Kris describes her tendency to dissociate from her body and imagine viewing herself through an omnipotent lens. In her fantasies, Kris is one of the characters in one of the slasher movies that is mere moments away from meeting their gruesome fate. Not only does Billy accept this all in stride, but she creates a safe space for Kris to play while being able to exit at any given moment. This fictional landscape starts to blend into the natural world as Kris gradually permits herself to actually want and do something about it. Besides, as Billy continuously repeats, if it gets too scary, you can always turn it off.
Camp Miasma is about as thickly layered as an onion, and critics will undoubtedly discover countless nitty gritty elements of the film to stick under a microscope. Schoenbrun inserts plenty of their own personal experience and opinion to build upon her work. Kris’s impassioned rant about the frustrating realities of corporate Hollywood and their tendency to hire queer creatives to rebrand and redistribute content only for the sake of appearing “woke”. This conversation certainly mirrors the director’s own interactions within the industry and their own struggle to create thoughtful queer art. The multifaceted nature of this film, and its extensive diversion from their previous work, is a magnificent display of Schoenbrun’s capacity to represent the breadth of the queer experience. Where I Saw the TV Glow exists in the dark depths of self-loathing and repression, Camp Miasma takes a dramatic pivot in tone to engage with the intricacies of queer identity through a more light-hearted lens. This project is a violent, loud expression of the joyous experience of release – both sexually and psychologically. It is about the intimate discovery of arousal and personal desire, while TV Glow cautioned against the destructive ramifications of internally bottling up these emotions. In choosing to pursue death and dip into the realm of fantasy, Kris and Billy actually are deciding to live as their authentic selves.
Our characters complete their final transformation in a bizarre third act. The barrier between the real world and fantasy has crumbled entirely. Scantily clad and sprinting for her life, Kris has entered the world of her fixation and is marked as Little Death’s next victim. She escapes into one of the cabins, where Billy is waiting for her with the promise that all of this is just play. As they fall into bed together, she encourages Kris to watch herself through the killer’s eyes. Death and release are a bloody package deal as Little Death spears both women through, the camera focused tightly on Einbinder’s face as she portrays the shift from terror to bliss. When morning arrives, the two are revived from their poetic, metaphorical death. Drenched in blood and giddy in the light of the aftermath, they playfully bicker while loading a shopping cart with candy at a local gas station. Kris wanders out into the daylight, a faraway look in her eye as she repeats the iconic line of the franchise, “Can you feel it? He’ll be back soon to feed again”. Her face splits into a wondrous grin that is mirrored by Billy, and the two walk hand-in-hand as the camera pans up to clear blue skies. As the title card flashes across the screen, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma joins the plethora of films guaranteed to intimately mold an entirely new audience seeking connection within the art they consume.