Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Starring: Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Fix, Arthur Conti, Eva Victor, Zach Cherry, Sarah Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Quintessa Swindell, Kevin McDonald, Jack Haven, Aren Buchholz
Running Time: 112 min.
Rating: R
★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)
Writer/director Jane Schoenbrun's Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma has one of the more creative opening credit sequences you'll see. In fact, it's great enough to fear the rest of the film won't match it, even if you're really interested in seeing how it'll try. It begins with a haunting cover of R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming" blasting over the soundtrack as we're shown vintage movie memorabilia from the fictitious Camp Miasma horror franchise. Everything from action figures and arcade games to VHS tapes, "MiasmaCon" flyers and old newspaper clippings track the once popular property's fall after a string of inferior sequels and decreasing cultural relevance.
You could call this a love letter to fans who know the pain of clinging to their favorite horror series, even long after these films fade from the public's consciousness, labeled politically incorrect by modern standards. But Schoenbrun understands this loyalty is less about the actual movies than our memories of how we first felt watching them. And that's something fans never stop chasing, despite the rest of the world moving on to what's next, repeating the cycle all over again. But the question of whether this picture delivers on the promise of its opening proves more complicated, which isn't exactly a surprise given how much we're asked to unpack.
When queer filmmaker Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder) is hired to write and direct a reboot of the 80's cult classic horror slasher Camp Miasma, it's obvious why she was picked. After a number of failed follow-ups the studio plans to go more "woke" with this new project, hoping the involvement of a gay writer/director will soften perception of the original's transphobic premise. A cross between Friday The 13th and Sleepaway Camp, it centered around a deceased bigender killer known as "Little Death" (Jack Haven) who emerges from the lake to spear every counselor in sight while breathing heavily through a giant air vent on their head.
With fond childhood memories of the series, Kris leaves her polyamorous partner Mari (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and agent (Sarah Sherman) behind for a meeting with the original's reclusive star, Billy Preston (Gillian Anderson), who currently resides at the abandoned camp from the first film. While Kris tries coaxing the actress out of retirement to reprise her role, they slowly bond, as an inquisitive Billy seems more interested in what makes Kris tick as a person than her plans for the franchise. Impressed with how Billy exposes her to layers of art and life she never considered, Kris becomes convinced this new version should again focus on Billy's character. But now more immersed in this reboot than she ever imagined, the lines between fiction and reality collide, trapping both women in between.
The trailers would have you think this story concentrates on these two being trapped in a horror movie universe on the verge of resurrection when it's actually about the how the films get trapped inside of them. So those expecting Wes Craven's A New Nightmare or 2015's The Final Girls will probably be shocked by how little it has in common with those, at least aside from its meta DNA. That's especially evident when Kris complains about a mention of the former while selling her vision for the project on a video call with befuddled, displeased studio executives. It's a hilariously clever conversation with layers that double for how we imagine the pitch for this film could have gone.
Even before Kris cracks the code for her reboot, Schoenbrun immerses us in Miasma's world with a meticulous recreation of cult 80's slashers and the obsessive fandom surrounding them. It's a phenomenon Kris knows too well, having her formative memories shaped by the experience of watching Billy Preston on VHS. Though outwardly nerdy and reserved, she's completely sincere in wanting to do this property justice, regardless of the studio's silly but realistic reason for hiring her.
In person, Billy's much more than Kris imagined, painting and creating on the abandoned campgrounds after quietly retiring from an industry that hung her out to dry decades ago. She's also keeping a secret Kris is about to be let in on, with their relationship becoming this sort of song and dance, as if Billy's determining whether her houseguest can handle the consequences. It's only when Kris metaphorically lets her hair down that the film reaches another bizarre level that ties back to Billy's original performance as a teen (played by Amanda Fix).
Einbinder takes the initially insecure Kris on a journey that moves from nervousness to eye opening realizations about her deep connection to the series. And when finally given a chance to live inside that world, Einbinder's performance reaches a thrilling peak, her character transforming before our eyes. Anderson captivates as kooky, retired actress Billy, this Southern queer version of Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond. But if Billy isn't quite done with this character, the movie isn't through with her either. It's a creepily hypnotic turn that keeps us guessing the entire time, right up until Billy shows Kris her print of the original film, but from a completely different perspective.
Schoenbrun dedicates a fairly large section to footage from the original Camp Miasma, zeroing on teen Billy's struggles during monotonous sex scenes and the story's missing key that eventually unlocks her door to ecstasy. And even when portions of this section sometimes struggle to hold our complete attention, a sensational tracking sequence following Little Death's murderous rampage in a cabin doesn't, mostly due to another memorable needle drop and the demented sight of this HVAC headed killer on a slicing spree.
Much of the first third hints at an emerging masterpiece before pumping the brakes midway to engage in the same kind of hypersexualization as the movies it's spoofing, which is probably the point. But this leads to an exciting blood bath of a finale that brings everything home and practically begs for a rewatch. The performances, painterly visuals and retro synth score all converge, justifiably earning comparisons to Schoenbrun's even more perplexing and complex I Saw the TV Glow. Like that, this explores our relationship with media and pop culture, only using 80's slashers as its entry point rather than a cult 90's TV series.
While many justifiably categorized the director's previous film as an allegory about gender identity, it bubbled under the surface of a more intriguing mystery. That aspect is far less coded here, its ideas rising from the abyss to shock and bludgeon us into submission, resulting in a delightfully twisted meta movie within a movie experiment. More elevated psychological thriller than pure slasher, it aims high, further establishing Schoenbrun as a filmmaker who doesn't just have something to say, but keeps coming up with remarkably unique ways of saying it.
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