THE STORY – The infamous Camp Miasma slasher franchise is getting rebooted yet again.
But when the latest movie’s director becomes obsessed with the mysterious, reclusive actress who played the “final girl” in the original film, a whole new kind of slasher emerges from the bottom of the lake.
THE CAST – Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Fix, Arthur Conti & Eva Victor
THE TEAM – Jane Schoenbrun (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 112 minutes
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: the hardest part of writing is getting started. A cliche, sure, but sometimes cliches get that way because they’re repeatedly-proven truths. And as my concerned Cannes roommates can attest, I’ve spent a worrying amount of time stomping around our Airbnb, struggling with how to begin putting my thoughts together on Jane Schoenbrun’s latest question mark of a movie, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.” So why not lean into this uncertainty? If any movie invites, or even requires, an appreciation of the ambiguous and a willingness to not shy away from meta-on-meta stylings, it’s this one. On its surface, it’s a deconstruction of the cheapo slasher, which peaked in the late 70s through the 90s. A layer below that, it’s an assessment of the state of horror filmmaking and Hollywood on the whole. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find something much more unexpected and tough to wrangle: a loving send-up that pokes at the idea of artistic self-reflection, even parodying its own postmodern (or post-postmodern) perspective. Is it successful at what it attempts? I think so! Does that make it “good”? Well…(and I promise this isn’t a cop-out) I don’t know if I know yet. Let’s be brave and explore this together by hopping in the van, heading for Camp Miasma, and seeing what we can find. Seatbelts, everyone!
The titular campgrounds are actually the name of a fictional horror franchise that exists within the film’s world. It’s so clearly an alternate version of the “Friday the 13th” series (that’s the one with Jason, for the 1% of you reading this specific review who aren’t aware) that its logo’s font is perfectly imitated by the one for “Camp Miasma.” But just as the real-world slasher series did, the “Camp Miasma” franchise long ago sputtered to an inglorious close after many, many entries with increasingly diminishing box office returns and cultural appreciation (we learn all this in a spectacular opening credits sequence). But, just as with the murderous antagonist of “Camp Miasma” named “Little Death,” the series appears to be back from the dead. Hot off the heels of a cinematic breakdown of horror film habits that was a hit at Sundance, young filmmaker Kris (Hannah Einbinder in her big screen debut, at least as a non-cameo) has been tasked by the studio that owns the rights to “Camp Miasma” with coming up with an idea for a reboot.
To kickstart her creativity (and perhaps use her newfound clout to fulfill some fangirl dreams), Kris visits the original star of the very first “Camp Miasma” film, Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson). 35 years after she made cinematic history as the series’ first final girl, Billy rejected offers to appear in the two subsequent sequels and faded into obscurity. She now lives at the abandoned campsite that stood in for Camp Miasma during filming of the first film, spending her days in a semi-isolated cabin. Kris and Billy quickly make a connection that goes beyond actor and fan, approaching something deeper as they share thoughts and experiences buried deep within their beings.
It’s a dynamic that veers close to that of Norma Desmond and Joe in “Sunset Boulevard,” and the film even calls this out by name (one scene featuring a turban-wearing Billy screening footage from her cinematic triumph directly evokes Billy Wilder’s classic). They’re artists of two separate generations, but rather than their vastly different lives and perspectives leading to stereotypical clashes between the old and new ways of doing things, Schoenbrun lets the two characters bond over what makes them different. Kris also expresses how she has to bridge the gap between paradoxical approaches to the horror genre: IP is the only thing that makes money in Hollywood nowadays, but at the same time, studios are aware that they have to reckon with and move away from the occasionally offensive mindsets that served as the foundation of many slashers of yesteryear. Schoenbrun is unafraid of poking at this self-imposed catch-22, affectionately mocking the ways that filmmakers in our real world have attempted to have their nostalgic cake and wokely eat it too.
In fact, Schoenbrun’s references go far beyond “Friday the 13th.” “Sleepaway Camp” and “The Burning” are teasingly mentioned, which only feels appropriate given how suspiciously similar those films are to Jason’s murderous adventures. And, brilliantly, the director even shows off their deep knowledge of 80s and 90s slasher trademarks and tropes through the substantial amount of footage of “Camp Miasma” they’ve assembled. These sequences are an unabashed delight for the kind of horror freak who can name their five favorite Jason kills. Schoenbrun gets the filmmaking details so, so right. The dialogue is wonderfully corny, with idiosyncratic lines filled with strange repetitions that feel truthful to the genre and time period being aped (the characters keep saying the phrase “freak house,” as if that’s a common idiom). The lighting, the camera angles, the energy of the performances…this is clearly a director who’s absorbed a borderline-unhealthy amount of low-grade slasher movies, to which many viewers (this critic included) will surely relate. And it’s not just the film-within-a-film sequences that are stunning to look at: the camp that Billy has made her home is like something out of a cinephile’s dream, constructed with tangible yet beautifully artificial sets and breathtaking matte-painting backdrops. It’s a pleasing way to give the film’s non-fiction world a whimsical energy. Billy even appropriately describes it as “a private alternate universe.”
But quietly, things start to shift. Certain shots in the pastiche “Camp Miasma” sequences subtly appear off, leading up to a long-take kill sequence in which the camera is strangely fixed on Little Death’s bemasked face. It’s as if Kris and Billy’s combined memories of and first-hand encounters with “Camp Miasma” are melding and distorting away from the fictional truth of the films, with their ever-twisting feelings affecting both the ways they look at the films and the manner in which the false world starts to creep into their real one. Facts prove to be malleable, laws of time and space are broken at a felon’s pace, and the audience is purposefully led far away from the path of even abstract sense. The film expands past its own reality, our true reality, and a meta reality. It’s easy to feel left behind by the film’s intentions. But no matter viewers’ specific level of interpretation, what Schoenbrun does with the slasher genre, using it as a springboard to explore ideas that clearly resonate with them, is compellingly intelligent and consistently fascinating. While the genre used transphobic stereotypes for shock and scares, Schoenbrun bends these elements into commentary on the rigid expectations of gender. Whereas sex was often used as a way to demarcate “good” and “bad” characters and determine who would ultimately be a victim or survivor, Schoenbrun uses physical human connection as a means of empowerment and discovery (look to the name of Camp Miasma’s villain as a clue about this aspect of the film).
While the road the film treads is undoubtedly difficult, and whether that challenge is welcome to the hikers who are the film’s audience is a matter of personal taste, what’s not in question is how excellent and committed to their director’s vision Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson are. Both pop culture queer icons, in their own ways, these two women are totally strapped in for a ride on the roller coaster that Schoenbrun has constructed for them. Einbinder’s humor shines through, bringing a welcome knowing energy to the film’s comedy (this is, by a wide, wide margin, Schoenbrun’s funniest and least upsetting film yet, a total about-face from the gorgeously dreary “I Saw the TV Glow“). And Anderson is simply sensational, swishing and drawling her way through the film like a Blanche DuBois directed by David Lynch. If nothing else can be appreciated about the film, these two performances are inarguably stellar.
Alright, so we did it. My thoughts on “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” have been wrangled into something approaching sense (I’d say let me know if you feel otherwise, but I don’t read the comments). But there’s still so much more to explore in Schoenbrun’s film, and sense is likely one of the least important aims that the filmmaker had when making it. The only thing to do is to take a trip to Camp Miasma yourself. Bring a bunk buddy and be sure to stay up past your bedtime talking about your journey through Jane Schoenbrun’s latest mindfuck.
