Time: 112 Minutes
Age Rating: R16 – Violence, offensive language, drug use & sex scenes
Cast:
Hannah Einbinder as Kris Williams
Gillian Anderson as Billy Presley
Jack Haven as Little Death
Patrick Fischler as Rudolph
Director: Jane Schoenbrun

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma was my fourth movie of the NZIFF, and was one of my most anticipated films of the year. Jane Schoenbrun became a director that I started to really pay attention to after We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and especially after I Saw the TV Glow. I was curious as to what this movie would turn out to be and it ended up being one of my favourites of the year.

Of Jane Schoenbrun’s 3 movies, this is their most rewatchable and accessible movie. It’s wonderfully weird, funny, and campy, and the opening scene sets the tone for much of the film. The script is sharp and fresh, and I was entertained all the way through. It is definitely satirical and meta about horror movies, especially reboots, remakes and revivals of franchises. It is a genuine love letter to horror movies especially in the slasher genre. There’s plenty of horror references to the likes of Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Sleepaway Camp. At the same time, Camp Miasma is still a personal film, being about the connections that viewers have with movies, the impact that films have on people, but especially about self discovery and desire. It allows room for interpretation, it is a movie packed with a lot of ideas floating about, and you can certainly extract your own unique take or interpretation from it. I myself am still grappling with aspects of the movie, and I feel like I could get even more out of it next time I watch it.

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson are amazing, sharing some wonderful chemistry between each other and their performances fitting the off kilter tone of the film. The rest of the cast are really good too, with actors like Eva Victor, Zach Cherry, Dylan Baker and Jack Haven having some fun parts.

Jane Schoenbrun’s direction is amazing and stylish, it definitely feels like their largest scale movie following World’s Fair and TV Glow. It visually pays homage to a lot of B-level horror movies and it does well capturing the aesthetic of the 70s and 80s slashers, with such attention to detail. It particularly shines in the segments in which it shows footage of the fictionalised Camp Miasma film. The visuals are hypnotic, dreamlike and surreal. I loved the stunning cinematography, especially with the stellar tracking movements, the great use of colours, and the use of painting/hand-drawn art for the backgrounds and environment). I really liked the use of music, and Alex G’s soundtrack is great in his third collaboration with Schoenbrun.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is an enjoyably campy, entertaining, yet personal satire about slashers and self discovery. It’s visually stunning, wonderfully directed, and has great performances from Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson. One of the year’s best.