Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★☆ (3.8/5)

Rated: MA15+

Directed and Written by: Jane Schoenbrun

Produced by: Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner

Music by: Alex G

Director of Photography: Eric K. Yue

Starring: Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson, Jack Haven, Amanda Fix, Arthur Conti, Eva Victor, Zach Cherry, Sarah Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker.

Darkness and breath.  A first-person point-of-view walks through a film set, outside.  Jumpy.  A camera lens flicks to the sound of cicadas.  A silver monster with a square helmet like the front of an old video camera.  A spear used to enter flesh.  Producing a ridiculous amount of blood.

It’s a funny twist on a slasher.  A funny-on-purpose scene of overdone horror, so it’s not horror.  But an artist’s perspective of horror, viewed with a wry twinkle in the eye.

The character, Kris (Hannah Einbinder) wants to resurrect a slasher movie franchise: Camp Miasma.

She drives out to the setting of the original movie to meet with the first film’s ‘final girl’, Billy (Gillian Anderson).

After Billy refused to be recast in the sequel, then the one after, to eventually stop getting calls because she ‘aged-out’ of the franchise, Billy, living back at the original set of Camp Miasma, became a recluse.

Kris wants Billy to star in her reboot, her version of Camp Miasma.

They get to know each other.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a film of painted backgrounds like a nature painting that backs characters’ cast in a movie about a movie – an exploration of being so affected by watching a film as a child, that it shapes Kris’s sexuality in adulthood; her life.

Writer and director, Jane Schoenbrun (who also wrote and directed the film, I Saw the TV Glow (I’m a fan)) states: “I wanted to make a movie about that mystery, and that feeling of slowly coming into oneself. And the feeling of not just watching yourself during sex from a far away alienated place, or watching yourself during life from that same place, but actively existing in yourself and in the world and in your identity. Entering the film as a way of entering yourself.”

The film’s an ode to masochism subverted into an embrace of desire so the idea becomes subverted into hedonism.  While dancing to the tune of Little Death (Jack Haven).

The storyline is wild and full of sexual desire and eating candy, but the moments of cartoon graphic becoming the reflection of the real-life posture of the person ground the film in a dreamy love story of shy girl meets old-time beauty with a weird life-view and wicked sense of humour.

Gillian Anderson is wonderful as Billy.

And somehow, most of the time, it’s funny.  A dark, subtle, twisted funny: the intentional bad acting of the original Camp Miasma franchise, the infant choking on a merch spear adding to the downfall of the franchise.  The intro of all the Camp Miasma merch is so much fun and leads the audience into the portal of the Camp Miasma world.

But aside from the funny, there’s beautiful moments too: ‘I’m sorry.  I wanted to scare you.  It’s only fair.  You’ve already seen me.’

The Red Riding Hood syndrome (is there a syndrome?  I’m thinking here along the lines of being a victim and the desire to be a victim) becomes top heavy, which I honesty didn’t revel in.  But those unique perspectives, the counterintuitive use of Counting Crows’ 1996 rock ballad, A Long December during the scene of Little Death wreaking havoc while the camera’s pointed at the killer and not the killed was a refresh of watching what isn’t horror, but something else.  A not-horror.

It’s weirdly fascinating to watch without being too heavy because this is horror experienced, processed, then projected through the dreams of Billy, then Kris.  All set to a spacey soundtrack, double lens and perfectly timed cigarette burns through scenes, changing the film from meta, to submerged.