Robert Hiltzik’s 1983 camp slasher Sleepaway Camp still divides audiences. Many queer viewers find the surprise ending quite transphobic, while others read the twist in very different terms. However you cut it, the landmark film speaks to queer audiences very specifically and continues to be a point of heated conversation on- and offline. In their brand new film, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, acclaimed writer/director Jane Schoenbrun offers fang-toothed analysis of Sleepaway Camp, their own modern reworking of the cult classic, and a deliciously orgasmic perspective on the summer camp slasher.
Slashers have always commented on sex as the villain’s weapon of punishment, how it relates to women’s bodies with a tilt to the misogynistic male gaze, and the innately perverted voyeuristic quality of the masked killer. Schoenbrun’s third feature talks these ideas, shoves them through a woodchipper, and basks in the blood-soaked rain that spews out the other end. It celebrates slasher conventions and reuses them for something fresh and heart-pounding.
The production house behind the Camp Miasma slasher franchise taps Kris (Hannah Einbinder), a promising indie filmmaker, to direct a reboot of the series. A lot is riding on the project, and Kris wants to both honor the original and push the iconic IP into the future. The studio wants to expand upon the killer’s backstory, but Kris struggles to unlock what that could and should be. So, she heads out to meet the original Final Girl from the first film at a secluded cabin in the woods. Billy (Gillian Anderson) vanished from the public eye soon after starring in Camp Miasma, and Kris wants to know why. Perhaps that reason could be the key to her reboot.
Kris holds Camp Miasma near and dear to her heart. Taking on the creative property is a literal dream come true. Growing up, she identified so much with Billy’s character, particularly the detachment from sex and her inability to have an orgasm like other girls her age. In her relationship with Mari (Jasmin Savoy Brown), Kris wrestles with being numb to carnal attraction and the roadblocks keeping her from experiencing the high of climax. But in meeting Billy, Kris finds an entry point into the sexual realm and how her fleshy pleasures all lead back to Little Death (Jack Haven), the vent-masked killer in the films. Jane Schoenbrun rips pages from their own life and journey in transitioning and how that shifted their relationship with sex.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma takes the slasher obsession with punishing teens for having sex and turns it inward, examining the deep self-loathing that stems from society’s strict puritanical ideals. Kris becomes enchanted with Billy in a very primal way that she can’t quite explain. For her part, Billy shows her admirer the uninhibited path to both pleasure and pain and unlocks the Camp Miasma reboot with a liberation so raw it changes everything for Kris. Schoenbrun delights the viewer with plenty of blood, guts, and gore while nailing down queer sexuality in very tantalizing and freeing ways.
Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma riffs on numerous summer camp slashers, including Friday the 13th, The Burning, and Just Before Dawn. They playfully lean into tropes, such as the young woman falling while running for absolutely no reason, and also upend those cliches for a tremendously heartfelt love letter to classic slashers. But it never feels obnoxious or overwrought. The film serves as a perfect homage and a progressive link connecting the past to the future. As far as Sleepaway Camp is concerned, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is the reboot/remake queer audiences deserve.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma hits limited theaters on Friday (August 7).
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