Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma film review: Bloody good fun
Jane Schoenbrun's film features a stellar central pairing and an insightful exploration of the problematic slasher genre. Emma Simmonds hails a pleasingly deranged movie that manages to be satirical, savvy and very entertaining
In the ferociously funny, playful and achingly personal third narrative feature from director Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going To The World’s Fair, I Saw The TV Glow), Gillian Anderson stars as a scream queen and fried chicken fiend who casts a seductive spell over Hannah Einbinder’s queer film director before things descend into the mother of all bloodbaths. And if that doesn’t pique your interest, then perhaps nothing will. As in-your-face and offbeat as the title suggests, Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma was the winner of the Queer Palm at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Einbinder plays Kris, an avant-garde artist who we’re told ‘remade Psycho from the perspective of the shower curtain’. She’s been brought in to resurrect the toxic Camp Miasma franchise, a transphobic 1980s slasher series in the Friday The 13th mould that’s crying out for a woke and potentially lucrative makeover. The film’s ‘big bad’ is Little Death (played by Jack Haven), a trans teen who was bullied and eventually drowned by peers and who rises from their watery grave to enact bloody vengeance, clad in an aircon unit helmet and armed with a spear.
To get her creative juices flowing, Kris tracks down the original film’s final girl, Billy Preston (played by Anderson in the present day and Amanda Fix as a twentysomething). This enigmatic figure went off-grid following the first instalment and lives a bizarre Norma Desmond-like existence on the abandoned summer camp set of the film in question. Pristinely attired and speaking in a lavish southern drawl, Billy saunters about the place behaving suspiciously and scoffing absurd quantities of junk food while encouraging Kris to indulge her own appetites.
When Kris makes her pitch to get this reclusive star involved in the reboot, Billy is turned off by the overanalytical, academic approach, suggesting the franchise is about two very simple things: ‘flesh and fluids’. The pair come to an understanding and, as the sexual tension builds with reality and fiction merging, Little Death threatens to cross over to the real world. Jasmin Savoy Brown (Yellowjackets, the Scream franchise) features as Kris’ partner Mari with whom she’s in an open relationship, while Dylan Baker appears briefly as a baffled movie exec.
Following the character of Kris as she muddles her way through a creative and personal crisis and explores her sexuality, this is the first film made by Schoenbrun post-transition and interrogates the process of ‘slowly coming into oneself’. The film also gets its hands dirty digging into the nostalgia and ongoing obsession with the fun, horny and frequently offensive slasher genre that appeals to everyone from incels to feminists. Punishing youth, sexual activity and beauty, the genre also has a history of bigotry, foregrounding and empowering some women while simultaneously judging and objectifying others.
Schoenbrun makes films that are gorgeously idiosyncratic and ethereal to the point of being a little ungraspable. But here the director makes the jump to something with a wider appeal that concretely satisfies its satirical ambitions while feeling authentically midnight movie-esque. Shot on a shoestring over 25 days, this dreamy and deranged effort hilariously sends up generational tensions and the movie business, leaning in hard to the surrealness of its set-up. Full of delicious details for slasher aficionados and VHS lovers to enjoy, it includes extravagant kills and an unforgettable opening credits sequence which charts the highs and lows of the Camp Miasma franchise in savvy and amusing style.
From her roles in Crooked House, The Great and American Gods to her slightly barmy Thatcher in The Crown, Anderson has camped it up before but perhaps not on this level; as she evokes Gloria Swanson and other classic Hollywood dames, she’s evidently having a blast. Einbinder is the perfect foil, employing skills honed over five seasons of TV’s Hacks, in which she bounced off the great Jean Smart. Her deadpan schtick and experience playing impeccably awkward second fiddle to an older and rather fabulous female co-star comes in very handy here. Amid the slashing and the snacking, it’s a partnership to savour.
Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma is in cinemas from Friday 21 August.