Early into Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Sundance-anointed filmmaker Kris (Hannah Einbinder) explains to erstwhile scream queen Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson) that she’s been parachuted in to resurrect the “zombie IP” that is the teen slasher Camp Miasma franchise because she’s queer. After a raft of progressively worse sequels, an ocean’s-worth of plastic tie-in tat and numerous articles calling out the original film’s transphobia, the studio aren’t about to leave a potential cash cow on the table. They’ve just got to find a fresh young filmmaker who can lend some much-needed credibility. Who better to use as a cudgel to beat any potential backlash than a polyamorous, non-binary bisexual director? Kris just needs the help of the original film’s reclusive star to realise her vision – but Billy seems sceptical it’s all that deep. She offers her own assessment of her first and only leading role in a syrupy southern drawl – Camp Miasma was only ever really about two things: “Flesh and fluids.”
Presley’s knowing assessment of her star-making turn unlocks Schoebrun’s third feature, building on the steady footing of their previous films We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw The TV Glow. We join Kris, the self-described “prude” who got hooked on horror as an isolated kid, as she journeys to the rural Pacific Northwest in search of her elusive leading lady. Her comically disinterested agent (Sarah Squirm) is entertaining Kris’ pilgrimage as a creative folly in hopes it will unlock her client’s creative spark; what follows is something stranger, sweeter, and sexier. Enveloped by the snow-bound camp ground where her north star horror franchise was born, Kris meets the legendary Billy Presley, the final girl of her childhood dreams, who’s been holed up happily waiting for a tap at her window.
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Together artist and muse become intertwined; Kris unfurls like a lotus flower, leaning into Billy’s warmth. What starts as a work trip to convince a reclusive star to make a reboot cameo becomes a love story; You met me at a very strange time in my life for a generation of queer oddballs who saw themselves in stolen scraps and trick mirrors before “representation” ever became a buzzword for Hollywood to capitalise on. In breathy confessionals Kris tells Billy her darkest secrets: how sex has always been a form of astral projection; how she doesn’t know who she is outside of the movies that have become her entire identity. The fake blood in the film arcs in violent red fountains; Billy and Kris’ blossoming romance is the rich crimson of Kensington Gore, all emotion and heart.
For kids who grew up sneaking glances at horror movies at sleepovers or between shopping channel informercials on late night television, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma feels like coming home. The winking comedy of it all (“I feel like there’s about to be a jump scare,” Kris grins; “Do you…like dipping sauce?” Billy asks in a breathy drawl as she proffers a platter of KFC) is never forced, while a murderous one-shot rampage set to Counting Crows’ ‘A Long December’ is a cathartic moment of rage, sadness and euphoria mirroring the struggle to self-identify that leads so many of us to find kinship in horror movies to begin with.
The playful meta casting of Gillian Anderson – on top form as a Norma Desmond/Norma Jean hybrid – is well matched by the charisma of Einbinder’s sharp, awkward, effortlessly endearing ingénue, with a gleeful assist from the always excellent Jack Haven as misunderstood murderer Little Death. “Genre-bending” as a term is bandied around a lot in film marketing, but it’s hard to think of a film where it feels more apt a descriptor; Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma defies easy categorisation. It’s a romance, sure, but it’s also a horror film about the agony of contorting oneself in traditional gender and sexuality binaries, and undoubtedly it’s a comedy too, poking fun at the self-seriousness of prescriptive horror analysis and the idea we have to constantly qualify the pop culture that made us with acknowledgements of its flaws.
But perhaps that initial assessment offered up by Billy Presley hits the nail on the head. For all the delicious layers at play in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (intergenerational divides; Hollywood’s obsession with reboots, sheboots, sequels, prequels and spin-offs; the desire to bury oneself in work to ward off personal relationships) when it comes down to it, maybe this really is a love story. It’s a hand reaching through the screen to the misfit kid who catches it at their most lonely and lost; a reminder that the freak shall inherit the earth, and fuck anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.