Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a 2026 surreal satirical horror movie written and directed by Jane Schoenburn. It stars Hannah Einbender as Kris, a young filmmaker hired to make a ‘woke’ reboot of the Camp Miasma franchise, and Gillian Anderson as Billy,  a reclusive actress and the final girl of the first film.

It is, without doubt, the best Lesbian horror movie I have seen this year.

The film is a love letter to slasher horror, with a big bone thrown to more classic Hollywood, with references to Sunset Boulevard and Psycho.

I enjoyed that the horror was cartoonish, with copious amounts of blood. I never really got scared or grossed out. The slasher monster is a drowned trans victim of bullying who returns from the dead with an air vent for a face (which occasionally allows glimpses of eyes – like the shower curtain of Psycho), armed with spears and arrows. The murderer is known as Little Death, a reference to female orgasm.

This is a film about film and its role in identity production, with a particular emphasis on female and trans sexuality. It is about how film can be a pinpoint for queer awakening. It is an exploration of the complexity of becoming sexual in a world that celebrates heterosexuality, creepy masculinity, teasing, bullying and marginalisation of the uncomfortable or unconventional.

But most of all it is a camp horror that loves camp horror.

It is not just that the two duelling main actors understood the brief – they are the brief. Gillian Anderson has been many a young woman’s gay awakening, especially in the 1990s, but also through her unabashed acknowledgement of her own bisexuality and relationships with women. She performs the Norma Desmond recluse caught in the flashbulbs of scrutiny with flamboyance and playfulness.  And Hannah Einbender, has become the spokeswoman for a new, liberated bisexuality, that acknowledges complex relationships and stands for human rights. Putting these together is the movie.

The movie has fun with material that often mistreats women, gay and trans characters. Because it understands that it is for an audience that is used to having to re-interpret, reclaim and insert their queerness into material for themselves.

It plays with colour, settings, with isolation and seasons – a spring awakening. And there is so much candy, highly- coloured sweets, that suggest a sugar high comparable to drug-use. It is intellectualised fun. It wears its intelligence and its high-spirits in equal measures. It offers an escapism that doesn’t forsake character or context. And this produces a story about desire, and liberation from shame, with an ending that is open to interpretation and discussion.

In fact, when the world returns to normal from all the hate, bigotry and anti-intellectualism this is the kind of film that will don many a curriculum for Queer Studies. People will apply Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble and stroke their chins for many years to come.

So, is this a movie for you?  Here’s a quick questionnaire:

1.      Are you a proud member or ally of the LGBTQIA community?

2.      Do you have a sense of humour?

3.      Can you cope with blood?

4.      Are you more than a little pretentious?

5.      Do you like to talk about the meanings of film for days after you’ve watched them?

I’m guessing if you can answer yes to all those – the film is for you.

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