Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

It started as a remake. It ended as a nightmare.
When young, ambitious film director Kris (Hannah Einbinder) gets the chance to revive the classic horror franchise about Camp Miasma, it's a dream come true. To add weight to the project, she seeks out the star of the original films in the series, Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), who is slated to star in the remake. The encounter between the idealistic director and the more experienced, withdrawn actor becomes the starting point for a tale of obsession, artistic control and the relationship between cult films of the past and today's look at them. As work on the film takes shape, the line between remake, remembrance and reality begins to shift. What at first looks like a meta-horror about recreating a slasher universe evolves into a more unsettling tale of identity and desire.

“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” is directed by Jane Schoenbrun, who is particularly known for working at the intersection of coming-of-age, horror and queer sensibility. The film was quickly surrounded by much interest, not least because it came after the much-publicized “I Saw the TV Glow,” and because Schoenbrun here moves even more clearly into a meta-slasher tradition with a personal and artistic touch. The film has been described as a sort of queer reinterpretation of the classic camp slasher genre but with a far greater focus on desire, identity and psychological disintegration.

The cast includes Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson as the film's central duo, flanked by Patrick Fischler, Jack Haven, Eva Victor, Zach Cherry, Sarah Sherman and Jasmin Savoy Brown, among others. Precisely the casting makes up a large part of the film's appeal: Anderson's presence gives the project both iconic heaviness and a connection to the film's theme of stars of the past and horror mythology, while Einbinder represents a newer generation of performers with a more modern, queer and self-aware expression.

The festival reception has also boosted the film's reputation. The world premiere at Cannes sparked a six-minute-long standing ovation and the film also won the Queer Palm, placing it centrally in the conversation about the year's most distinctive queer and genre films. This reception has helped transform the film from a niche project to a broader art-house horror film.

Directed by: Jane Schoenbrun
Starring: Gillian Anderson, Hannah Einbinder, Patrick Fischler
Género: Horror
Running time: 106 min.
Age limit: Allowed for children over 15