Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
With my second experience with a film of theirs, I think Jane Schoenbrun is going to be a filmmaker whose work I’m always curious to watch, but may always find myself slightly removed from. I haven’t seen their feature debut yet, “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” but with “I Saw the TV Glow” and now “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” the elements and thematic base have been strong, but the final execution keeps me at a distance from loving the film outright. And yet, I cannot imagine NOT watching a film of theirs, because what I do love about the respective film, I really do love.
I’ve discussed this before, but I got into horror- in particular, the slasher genre- as a kid. I watched the first “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” and the first six “Friday the 13th” franchise, while we were still in Ohio. I did little scribbled “sequels” of the latter, and it kind of unsettled my mother. She didn’t necessarily put her foot down in me watching any more; it was probably just more of a relief when I phased out of it. “Friday the 13th” is the franchise that holds the most nostalgia of the slasher franchises for me, though; are they that deep? Not at all, but something about the simplicity of the premise just works on me.
With “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” Schoenbrun has made a film that examines the relationship some viewers have with slasher cinema. The films may not be terribly deep, but they do have a unique relationship with the culture of the times. They came at a time where the Religious Right was starting to take form, and the Satanic Panic happened not long after. The morality of movies like the “Friday the 13th” films is fascinating, because sex, drugs and bad behavior is often punished by the killer, and yet, the method behind its morality was so brutal of course the rising purity culture wouldn’t take to it. In the decades since, choices made in the genre have been re-examined not just by audiences who grew up with the films, but those discovering them on home media. Schoenbrun’s protagonist, Kris (Hannah Einbinder), is part of that younger generation who found it on home media, and it opened something up for them.
Kris is a queer filmmaker whose previous film was a Sundance favorite. Now, for a follow-up, she’s being given the keys to a reboot of the “Camp Miasma” slasher franchise. Early on, we get a montage of the franchise’s history, and it’s obvious that “Friday the 13th” is the template. (As an aside, it’s interesting that Schoenbrun’s inspirations for this and “I Saw the TV Glow” are things I love myself; remember that the show-within-the-movie in “TV Glow” was clearly inspired by “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”) The studio simply wants a reboot that includes some backstory of the franchise’s killer, Little Death (which seemingly has a vent opening for a head), but Kris is having a hard time cracking the script. For inspiration, she visits the reclusive final girl of the original film, Billy (Gillian Anderson), and what she finds unlocks something deep for her as an artist, and an individual.
Billy could have fronted the franchise similarly to Jamie Lee Curtis in the “Halloween” franchise, but she declined to appear in the first sequel to “Camp Miasma.” Her life has remained consumed by it, however. As Kris will see, Billy lives at the site of the original film’s camp. One of the cabins is a cinema, where she has a projector and film print to watch. Billy is very much in the vein of Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard,” but rather than a garish Los Angeles mansion, it’s the place of her lasting immortality. Is there a deeper reason she chose to live there? Of course, but I’ll leave Schoenbrun to reveal that to you. At first, Kris is there simply in hoping to break through on the story, but as she learns more about Billy- and the experience of filming “Camp Miasma”- something deeper forms between the women which will change things forever.
Schoenbrun is a fantastic craftperson in terms of bringing their vision to life. The way they go from showing us Kris and Billy watching an old print of the film itself to putting us into the film, and making it feel like the most natural transition in the world, is a cinematic trick that they played with in “TV Glow,” but really do masterfully here. The production design by Matt Hyland and Brandon Tonner-Connolly- shot with depth and diversity by cinematographer Eric Yue- is marvelous, and the soundtrack (a combination of songs and Alex G’s score) hits just right. And the performances by Einbinder and Anderson are terrific, and get to the depths within the characters. And yet, as with “TV Glow,” “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” kind of lost me in the third act. It takes leaps that challenge our perceptions of the film’s reality that I appreciate, but the film seemed to end with a whimper, as it were, after a big climax. As with “TV Glow,” I’ll probably want to rewatch it in the future, but the fact that it’s been two films in a row now where their vision just seemed to end is what keeps me at a distance with their work. It’s everything before that that assures I’ll still continue to watch their films, hoping one day it truly clicks with me.
