Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

Screened at Festival Theaters, Palm Springs, California

This film is basically about a young woman's later-in-life sexual awakening as experienced through the prism of the slasher cinema genre she's inspired by, including professionally. While that doesn't make a ton of sense, it also makes perfect sense. And that's exactly what the experience of watching this film is akin to, which is a very good thing.

The contrast as well between this being what is clearly a very personal film for director Jane Schoenbrun - the third in their filmography, including 2024's I Saw the TV Glow - and just an overall fun and enjoyable watch, was strangely refreshing. A lovely balance that isn't felt in a scattered way, but from the film's start, straight to the end. It needs to be said though, if not already made clear, this is neither an "indie slasher" per se, or "elevated horror" or whatever expectations you may have understandably had. There are definite horror elements abound, but even the graphic scenes are rather cartoonish, and it's basically devoid of any scares. So be prepared for what you're going into.

Visually, it's very much a continuation of Schoenbrun's style from I Saw The TV Glow, which you can see in the trailer below. Many lazily describe it as "Lynchian," which I can understand where that comes from to an extent, but like most directors, they take inspiration from their industry colleagues, which is anything but a bad practice. In fact, many have said Lynch was heavily inspired by director Billy Wilder, so much so that his film Sunset Boulevard was Lynch's IRL favorite film. Here, Gillian Anderson plays Billy Presley, the final girl from the first entry in the fictional stand-in for Friday the 13th, the Camp Miasma series. Billy is basically this film's Norma Desmond, the reclusive former Hollywood film star in Boulevard. It's a lovely and charming thru-line, the kind of thing you may not expect from a film called Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

I've never really understand the love for Gillian Anderson. I was never into The X-Files, so maybe that's where I'm missing out in "getting" her. But she's great in this as a rather mysterious character, one who is hard to read at times, but also very funny with her Desmond via Dolly Parton mash-up. Her chemistry with co-star Hannah Einbinder (apparently from Hacks, but she was new to me) was perfect and played a huge part in making this work.

Funny, fun, unique, inspired, mysterious, personal, surreal and gorgeous. It's not for everyone, but for those it's for, there's much to love here. Strong recommendation.