Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Starring: Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson, Jack Haven, Patrick Fischler
Certificate: 15
Run Time: 112 mins

Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma is the new film by Jane Schoenbrun, most notable for directing I Saw The TV Glow which I passionately detested. Although that film was dripping in style, it was saddled with a trite script, unlikeable characters and a dull and aimless narrative. Although Schoenbrun’s latest looks to emulate that film’s beautiful visuals, this time they’re exploring the slasher genre.

Camp Miasma is a fictional long-running slasher franchise, with Little Death (and that name is very important!) its central villain who uses a spear to slaughter his victims. Like many horror franchises, after the first one turned out to be a hit, the filmmakers made a load of sequels that degraded in quality and profitability. Queer filmmaker Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder) is hired to direct a reboot, and it’s the classic case of the studio wanting one type of film, whereas she has other ideas from her genuine attachment to the series as she’s grown up. She’s interested in casting Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), the final girl of the original, and Schoenbrun’s film opens as Kris travels to the campground Billy lives on to talk her ideas through.

The first third of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is excellent – I really liked the attention to detail Schoenbrun takes with crafting all the minutiae of the fictional series, and the film’s very cineliterate in how it examines the studio system and how directors approach their art. Hannah Einbinder makes for an excellent lead, really conveying her love for the series with her overly academic interpretations that won’t appeal to a mainstream audience – this is the kind of role that cements Einbinder as a future star. Gillian Anderson’s also great (when isn’t she?) and is clearly having fun as the past-her-prime actress, and the two share a palpable chemistry. There’s an interesting score by Alex G, with some memorable acoustic guitar-based themes but some of the song choices didn’t work for me. And of course, it’s beautifully shot by Eric Yue, with the film looking like it’s straight out of the 1980s.

Unfortunately, the film really ties itself in knots after about 45 minutes and chooses to divert away from being an astute examination of the film industry and the codes and conventions of the slasher genre into an exploration of sexuality. While not without its occasional bright spots, the rest of the film is rather languorous and I just didn’t care for the characters or see its purpose. Schoenbrun’s clearly made a film that feels personal, but I felt like an outsider to what they’re trying to explore in a way that becomes garbled. The film’s also completely devoid of tension or stakes and the attempts at humour never landed with me (although it did with quite a lot of the audience in my screening).

While undoubtedly better than I Saw The TV Glow (although that’s not a high bar!), Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma begins as a sharp deconstruction of the slasher genre, ultimately to become disinterested in that and explore sexuality instead. It’s certainly visually arresting with two top-notch performances at its core, but as soon as the film decides to switch its focus, I quickly became disinterested.