#REVIEW: “TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA”

Review by Nicholas Porteous for Mr. Will Wong

Up-and-coming indie film director Kris (Hannah Einbinder) sets her sights on resurrecting the Camp Miasma slasher franchise (a riff on Friday the 13th, featuring a Trans killer). To flesh out her concept, she drives to the snowy, secluded campground of the original films for a meeting with Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), star of the original Camp Miasma. The meeting morphs into a sleepover, and before long Kris is swimming in a sea of horror tropes that straddle the line between dreams and terrifying reality. There will be blood–but Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is just as much a descent into raw desire. Jane Schoenbrun‘s follow-up to I Saw The TV Glow is a playful. Horror-centric B-side–once again probing our relationship with media–particularly how it shapes us as we grow older, and the strange, inseparable connection between slashers and sexuality.

Anderson is dynamite as the legendary one-time Scream Queen Billy Presley. Hilarious, hypnotic, otherworldly, carrying secrets in her bones… she’s a complex personality to put it mildly, and Anderson lends an ineffable charm–essential motivation for Kris’ deep dive into her spooky world. Billy is a glorious personification of Camp Miasma’s core concept: fear and desire as best buddies. Einbinder brings a fraught, nerdy and alluring energy to Kris, though her presence is often dwarfed by Anderson‘s outsized persona.

Camp Miasma can be tricky to navigate. It presents itself as a narrative in the opening chapters, but gradually pulls the rug out from under you to reveal it’s more of a provocation–an unanswerable question surrounding the nature of horror movies. How do they consistently provide a safe space to explore intimacy? What’s that unmistakable parallel between the brutal penetration of a serial killer’s weapon and early sexual awakening? Can the bigoted trans killer trope be reclaimed? It’s a movie of juicy images and ideas (and yes, some fantastic needle drops), but it’s not the three-act story that it wears as a skin. Because it’s so light on plot, I craved a tighter edit. Some moments are practically begging to be slashed. The overall flow of Miasma is more “loosey-goosey” than I’d like.

Still, those images and ideas linger, and the world of Camp Miasma is so wonderfully realized. The opening credits are a masterclass in building a fake movie franchise, replete with all the marketing and merch. It also features the single most realistic (and funny) movie Zoom call I’ve ever seen. Schoenbrun‘s passionate attention to detail is infectious, and the sum of those parts is more than just a love letter to slasher cinema. If you’ve ever had a conversation about split-diopters, clung to a Horror series loooong after it stopped being ‘good’, or found yourself strangely turned on by a movie killer’s blade–you must pay a visit to Camp Miasma.

Mubi Canada release TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA in theatres August 14, 2026.