If you’ve never seen a Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow) movie, then just know you’re in for an adventure truly unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Going into their mind without knowing anything about the film or the director and seeing the chaos that unfolds beautifully and eloquently is certainly a wild leap of faith. While this may be Schoenbrun’s most accessible film by a long mile (as someone described “at least I can tell someone what the plot of this movie is in a sentence”), the underlying ethos of the story, characters, and execution are so layered and integral to the personal that Schoenbrun put out, having Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma serve truly as a completion (something they’ve said themselves) to their coming of age/self-discovery “Screen Trilogy” audiences have been on since 2021’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.
L-R: Hannah Einbinder as Kris and Gillian Anderson as Billy in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA. Photo courtesy of MUBI.
Fictional slasher franchise Camp Miasma takes every problematic summer camp movie we’ve ever see (we really see you, Sleepaway Camp (1983)) and gives it the resurrection treatment in a fresh way. As Kris (Hannah Einbinder) states herself as the director of its latest installment, “they brought me on because it’s zombie IP.” They wanted a fresh voice to reclaim the problematic franchises we have designated to be *the* franchises. Kris agreed because, again, as she states, “it was my queer awakening” and “this isn’t just going to be another updated but still problematic/bad rehash of a beloved ‘80s franchise that has truly run its course of time, but something new and reinvigorating and bold.” Throughout the in-film montage of the Camp Miasma franchise, it makes very evident references to the longevity of both Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises, their less than enthused reboots, and their plethora of real-world accessories/add-ons/games/etc., which is what Camp Miasma had become before Kris got her hands on the project.
However, Kris doesn’t want to just reboot Camp Miasma, she wants to make it her own, and she’s deeply obsessed with meeting the original final girl who’s mostly fallen off the face of the Earth after refusing to return for Miasma 2 and all the sequels, never to truly act again. However, fate has a funny way of working as Billy (Gillian Anderson) agrees to have a meeting with Kris who, at first, is ultimately just trying to recapture that “look” in Billy’s eye from the first Miasma movie right before Little Death (Jack Haven) gets her character. Billy plays as a recluse living at the original summer camp from the first Camp Miasma movie and Kris is understandably nervous, but when things get loose, and the two truly start bonding and connecting, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma goes beyond the spectrum of making a new Camp Miasma movie, and diverges into a sexual psychologically-fueled adventure now on the backdrop and setting of a slasher movie, where the true horror is never being able to be true to ones self.
L-R: Hannah Einbinder as Kris and Gillian Anderson as Billy in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA. Photo courtesy of MUBI.
There is a lot to unpack and dive into with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma; however, to properly understand everything, especially if you’ve never seen Jane Schoenbrun’s work before, it might be best just to watch We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow (2024) first. This will allow audience to understand the underlying themes, as well as the nuances of Schoenbrun’s work, which, as a whole, could be an entire case study, to process how it all tes into Kris’s character traits. Schoenbrun has said in interviews and Q&As that they believe this is the conclusion of their Screen Trilogy which culminated in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. This film is not a straight-forward, self-discovery, comfortable-in-one’s-own-skin type movie, and to read it that way does it a true disservice. Schoenbrun’s work is so special because it can be seen on the most basic, surface level imaginable, and the multitude of layers and dynamics and complexities that the characters are going through can also be understood, even without having an ounce of personal relatability. This is also what makes Camp Miasma arguably their magnum opus thus far for their career. The movie swerves away from being a tale of the hungry up-and-coming director getting her hands on the keys to the kingdom and becomes more of a journey of self-discovery and finally reaching that state of nirvana, making Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma the brilliant masterpiece it is.
Jack Haven as Little Death in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA. Photo courtesy of MUBI.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma being the creative mind child of Jane Schoenbrun works effortlessly because of the genius that is Schoenbrun themselves, but, at the same time, it needed a cast who could perfectly bring these characters to life. If you told me that Gillian Anderson (Sex Education) and Hannah Einbinder (Hacks) might have delivered the performances of the year, together and individually with their roles in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, I would’ve been hesitant to believe it at first, sight unseen. However, there is just a sheer, unaltered realness that they both bring to their roles that not only places the audience as just a fly on the wall, witnessing this unfold, but also reaches down into the soul, latches onto it, and never lets it go. This can be chalked up to Schoenbrun’s direction and writing as there was a similar experience with Justice Smith in I Saw the TV Glow; however there is no denying or taking away the utter brilliance that Anderson and Einbinder bring. That little twinkle Anderson places in Billy’s eye that Kris is hunting to recapture is, in essence, the entirety of the performances within Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. While there is a distinct moment where we get the actual twinkle we all crave and desire to have ourselves, there is an undeniable truth that it exists throughout their performances. The performances are simply transcendent and would be considered highlights in their respectively remarkable careers.
Anderson’s Billy is content (seemingly) not returning to the limelight until meeting Kris, and Einbinder’s Kris is just hungry and never self-serving or thinking of herself. When the two meet, their personalities and worlds simply canonically change, and we see it with the engagement of looks between each other, the subtleties, the cadence. It’s spoken without a breath being taken. In the most excellent performed use of product placement seen in a movie since arguably Killer Joe (2011), KFC highlights the simplicities of a facial tick that exudes so much more than singular word of dialogue ever could for Einbinder and, in the film’s conclusion, the look of safety, concern, and acceptance that Anderson’s Billy gives to Einbinder’s Kris summarizes that at the end of the day, all we need is to love ourselves, and everything will be okay.
L-R: Gillian Anderson as Billy and Hannah Einbinder as Kris in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA. Photo courtesy of MUBI.
Every single aspect of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is executed with precise precision and execution. There is not a single frame that feels unintentional, nor a single look, word, or second out of place. In a movie that is layered with reference after reference so that it feels like a “Did you catch this? If you didn’t, watch again!” kind of gotcha moment, everything falls into place perfectly. Einbinder and Anderson are quintessentially perfect together, bringing to life Schoenbrun’s vision to create one of the best modern movies that swerves the audience consistently on where we think it might be going, only to also give us one of the least problematic slashers. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is just through and through a brilliant study of acting, writing, and directing, creating one of the year’s best, most rounded out films which will surely lead to an unhealthy amount of discussion and dissection.
In select theaters beginning August 7th, 2028.
Expanding into NC theaters August 21st, 2026.
For more information, head to the official MUBI Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma webpage.
Final Score: 5 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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