Cinema for Brunch TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA Review

One of the best films of 2026, Jane Schoenbrun’s “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” is a trippy, hilarious deconstruction of slasher horror and its long-standing relationship with sex and violence.

Synopsis

After years of slapdash sequels, the “Camp Miasma” franchise gets handed over to an enthusiastic young director for resurrection. But when she visits the reclusive actress from the original film, the two women fall into a blood-soaked world of desire, fear and delirium.

Review
Sex and violence – two interchangeable, indestructible tropes betrothed in almost every slasher film you’ve seen. The relationship between sex and violence in the popular horror subgenre has been studied, challenged and reappraised in cinema for decades. With Jane Schoenbrun’s latest cinematic trip “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” (try saying that three times in public), slasher horror’s fascination with these two tropes in analyzed in a whole new light with dizzying, transcendent effect. The film follows queer filmmaker Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder) who is tasked with rebooting the “Camp Miasma” franchise, a franchise about a killer who rises from the lake and kills his victims with a spear (sound familiar?). Fixated on the final girl actress from the original film Billy Pressley (Gillian Anderson), Kris accepts the invite to come to Billy’s house (located on the original campgrounds from the original film) and convince her to join the cast of the new film. As the two women become acquainted, and conversations of sex and orgasms are discussed in detail, reality starts to blur with fantasy and the question of whether “Little Death” is real or imagined starts to becomes dangerously complex.

“Flesh and fluid” – this is what Billy tells Kris that the “Camp Miasma” franchise has always been about. Not gender roles, not transphobia, sex and death – no more, no less. The in-house Camp Miasma franchise is inspired by the Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp franchises – especially the former, its titles even using the same font as the Jason Voorhees films. “Camp Crystal Lake” is replaced by “Camp Miasma”. Instead of a hockey mask, he has a box on his head. The kills are over-the top, cartoonishly gory with the blood almost popping out like red paint. It’s main villain “Little Death” (a clever callout to the French expression of the post-orgasm sensation comparable to death) was raised as both a boy and girl by his parents and was tortured to death by his campmates because of it. Schoenbrun creates a tension between Kris and Billy as Kris aims to go beneath the surface of the popular slasher horror, stating there is something deeper going on and Billy states that things are what they are. It’s a horror film – no more or less…until it is. Einbinder’s performance as Kris is a finely tuned awkward performance of a woman that is apprehensive of intimate connection. Intimacy is somewhat foreign to her but it’s something about the horny, ultra-violent Camp Miasma series that awakens something within her. Gillian Anderson delivers the perfect campy performance as Billy, a Southern Belle recluse who is obsessed with the “Camp Miasma” film. She is definitely the source of a lot of the film’s humor. She carries more than a few hilarious deadpan exchanges with Kris as the two try to figure each other out. One exchange in particular that kills is when Kris explains to Billy what her sexual preference is. “I’m poly” “Who’s Polly?” “No, I’m polyamorous” “Oh…I don’t know Polly”. Another hilarious exchange is when Schoenbrun seems to make fun of artistic directors such as themselves when Billy delivers criticism to Kris’ directorial debut that got her the Camp Miasma gig. “You remade Psycho from the perspective of the shower curtain” “That was only the last third [of the film]” “…we’re just two different generations” The strange and sexual chemistry between these actors is the core of what makes this film work in addition to Schoenbrun’s inspired direction. Another performance to note is Dylan Baker’s performance as an obnoxious Hollywood producer in a Zoom meeting gone wrong. As Kris meets with him and others to discuss the reboot and her vision, things spiral into an awkward, disturbing direction and his confoundment to the whole ordeal makes the scene even funnier.

“If it gets too real, you can always turn it off” – a DVD slogan for the Camp Miasma release. Following the first two critically-acclaimed films in their “Screen Trilogy”, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” is simultaneously Schoenbrun’s most accessible film and her most inspired. Just as trippy as “I Saw the TV Glow” and just as unsettling as “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair”, “Camp Miasma” fuses the best of both worlds and delivers an immersive, surreal horror experience. In their script, they effortlessly balance satire with campy gore and palpable horniness. The littlest bit of sexual tension is felt even in the most random hilarious lines such as “Do you like dipping sauce?” The needle drops this time around is also awe-inspiring – the title credit sequence plays a low-fi version of R.E.M’s “Nightswimming” (wink-wink) and there’s an unforgettable killing montage set to “A Long December” by Counting Crows. The music score by Alex G is also inspired – when Kris first arrives to the Camp Miasma set, you can hear parts of the score that feels like it’s paying homage to Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence”, another film with queer themes.

Closing Thoughts
Knocking it out the park the third time around, Schoenbrun once again proves why they are one of the most exciting directors working today. “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” has as much cult classic power as the films it’s inspired by. Its reassessment of slasher horror’s relationship with sex and violence makes it a film that is more than just sexual tension and trippy visuals – it’s a film that loves a subgenre enough to challenge it, deconstruct it and build it back up again. Easily one of the best films of 2026.

Trailer