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Sex, Death, and the Mesmerizing Mindscape of Camp Miasma

“Now if it gets too real, you can always turn it off.”
You don’t see a lot of movies about sex anymore, not really. The mainstream film industry has been generally pretty sexless for a while now, but even apart from depiction there’s just not much of an interest in discussing sex with a genuine curiosity as to its complexities. Granted it was never a regular occurrence, but through previous decades there was every once in a while an Eyes Wide Shut or Crash that would show up in the zeitgeist and strike up conversations. It increasingly feels like that may be something that is needed again.
Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is as its title suggests a movie about sex and death -and it is very intentional that the two are linked. Whether Schoenbrun was driven to their choice of genre structure by these themes or if their compulsion to explore them came about as a byproduct of the kind of film they were already drawn to pursue, it is rather ideal that the slasher movie would be the sandbox through which to present them. Sex and death and an often direct relationship between the two has no better exposure than in slasher horror; a space wherein it is likewise comfortable to openly examine and break-down conventions of cinema and culture, politics and gender -as has been shown numerous times in its history- while also being weird and spontaneous and a lot of bloody fun. Schoenbrun here encapsulates it all.
Apparently one of Schoenbrun’s favourite past-times is creating fictional media entities and detailing all the ephemera and cultural impact around them. It was true of The Pink Opaque in I Saw the TV Glow and is as much the case with Camp Miasma, a cult classic 80s slasher franchise being cynically mined by a continuously I.P.-brained, uninspired Hollywood machine. Tapped to develop a remake is queer indie filmmaker Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder), coming off a modest breakout at Sundance. Kris is a fan of the series but aware that she has been hired as a P.R. ploy to brush over the transphobia inherent to its premise. Nonetheless, she is determined to meet and cast the reclusive 'final girl' of the original Camp Miasma, Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), whom she finds living at the film's isolated campground set. During her extended stay she is mysteriously drawn to Billy and a particular image of her from the film, as the boundaries of slasher fiction and reality start to unnervingly merge.
That aspect of reality and metaphor is certainly something Schoenbrun seems compelled by, aesthetically as much as narratively. Much like I Saw the TV Glow this is a very subjective film, using a character’s psychology and the surreal manifestations of their internal issues to get to a larger point. Schoenbrun frames it here too in a very metatextual fashion -Kris’s story itself being its own Camp Miasma film, like a smarter and more blatantly Lynchian version of the name-dropped, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. The movie signals these ambiguities very early on, in things such as the matte paintings that make up the background of the Camp Miasma set and occasional fluctuations in the picture video quality  -video is Schoenbrun’s preferred format to mimic here and they have a lot of fun with the designs and characteristics of home video releases. It is a trippy experience, but one that never ceases to surprise, Schoenbrun consistently finding new and provocative ways to communicate their ideas in visual terms.
The movie also has a good sense of humour and a very intense if perhaps obvious satire of the movie industry and its personalities. This extends to Kris herself, a surrogate for Schoenbrun (who like Kris is non-binary and polyamorous) and is called out a little bit by Billy for a certain artistic pretentiousness -her first movie is purportedly a pastiche on Psycho from the perspective of the shower curtain. But it’s the larger industry machine that is the subject of harsher criticism, both in its shallow nostalgia addiction (whilst being disconnected from the properties themselves) and its tendencies and stereotypes through the years. A middle section of the movie is devoted over to merely showcasing the original Camp Miasma, and Schoenbrun has a lot of fun in their caricature of 80s transphobia (whilst communicating still its harms).They also go nuts with a silly and stylistically exciting killing spree (full of fountains of blood), demonstrating an earnestness in their loving send-up of slasher tropes that more popular horror parodies could never capture.
At the centre of it all is Einbinder in one of her first movie roles at all, let alone leading roles -and she plays the complexities of this character very well -someone who is both introverted and outspoken, as bursting with ideas and passion as she is with psychosexual insecurities. As the film goes along, Kris only becomes more and more fascinating a character and Einbinder is required to go to some bizarre places in terms of her actions and vulnerabilities, and she makes it all work -perfectly uncomfortable where she is supposed to be, horrified, and yet liberated at the same time. The catalyst of that liberation is Billy though, and for the great showcase the movie is for Einbinder it is an even better one for Anderson. With a Blanche DuBois accent and a truly startling cackle, it is a broad performance, but one dripping in gravitas. It is strange to think that Anderson has not typically been a movie star, her screen charisma is undeniable and her intense and unusual choices here are truly astonishing in places. She manages to play Billy as both the unhinged vamp -a conscious play at times on Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond- and the wounded woman, who's state and behaviour are just as attributable to trauma as stubbornness. She is captivating, her spell on Kris entirely understandable.
Their relationship evolves with both fear and excitement, as Schoenbrun subverts the expected predatory dynamic for one built on curiosity and mystery. It is sexually charged from the get, owing perhaps to Kris's association of pleasure with the image of slasher tropes; and yet the two are united through deeper sexual anxieties -the source of Kris's awakening being linked to Billy's first orgasm captured by that first movie amidst a context of stress and violation. Schoenbrun handles the exploration of their chemistry remarkably -the vivid subtleties in their actresses' looks or body expressions, a sensually erotic sex scene, a romantic tenderness bridging the bizarre avenues arising from their isolation together in a manner evocative of Portrait of a Lady on Fire. All of these of course are intimately tied to the emergence of Camp Miasma's villain, Little Death.
There is a double-meaning in that name which makes clear what this slasher figure played by Jack Haven truly represents. With a giant box for a head and a spear for a weapon, they are not the most perturbing monster -but then that is part of the point. The gender-nonconforming Little Death is a victim, and both Billy and Kris understand that. They know why Little Death comes for them, and they are both fearful and welcoming of the fate they bring. Billy after all, has succumbed to Little Death before. 
As stated, this is a movie about sex, and the metaphors at play especially as the film edges to its climax are rich and original and quite open. Through colourful coding and genre aesthetics, Schoenbrun relates an inspired treatise on sexual awakening -its scariness and awkwardness, freedom and joy in even measure; and the queer specificity that peppers these cannot be understated. There is a kind of death to sex, but life as well, which may be their overarching point. Thrilling themes to ponder are matched and exceeded by the thrilling form that Schoenbrun chooses. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma delivers on the wackiness of that name, but it matches artful delirium with intriguing profundity. The meta components perhaps don't land quite as well and some of the industry satire is a bit too inside-baseball, but even where the intents and material is harder to parse, the tapestry is so interesting and strong. Schoenbrun is a singular visionary and it is a delight to see that vision realized without concession.

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