“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” Is Jane Schoenbrun’s Best Work Yet

Hannah Einbinder as Kris and Gillian Anderson as Billy in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. MUBI 

There is an exchange in Jane Schoenbrun’s film I Saw the TV Glow that sits in my heart like a 50-pound weight sometimes. About one-third of the way into the movie, main characters Owen and Maddy sit awkwardly near each other on the outdoor bleachers of their high school. After not being able to answer whether he likes boys or girls, Owen explains that when he thinks of his sexuality, it feels like “someone took a shovel and dug out all of my insides. And I know that there is nothing in there, but I am still too nervous to open myself up and check.” Then he asks Maddy, “Do you ever feel like that?”

This conversation feels something like a thesis of Schoenbrun’s work. The now three-time feature filmmaker has been heralded as one of the freshest voices in contemporary cinema. Their films center around ideas of queerness, gender, and one’s relationship to media as a relationship to themselves. Their latest, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, is the final installment in their “Screen Trilogy”—a concept they shared when promoting their first film, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, in 2021, which was followed by I Saw the TV Glow in 2024.

While none of the characters or storylines overlap among the films in the trilogy, it is quite clear that the bases of these works are directly connected. All three settle into the horror genre, but they don’t necessarily operate as your hide-under-the-covers type of scary movie. Rather, they sit comfortably within a genre that allows their protagonists to explore the dark and scary parts of themselves. I left all three films not afraid that something is lurking in the shadows of my environment but reminded that if I do not deal with the shadows within myself, they will lurk within me forever.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is Schoenbrun’s most evolved work yet. It feels grander in scale than World’s Fair and TV Glow. While the other two are not necessarily lacking, you can feel how much the director has honed their craft in Camp Miasma, which essentially turns into a movie within a movie as the story unfolds. The film is at once an ode to the slasher, a compelling coming-of-age tale, and a reimagined rom-com that made me genuinely blush at times.

Reviving the Past

The story starts out quite simply. We have Kris (Hannah Einbinder), our bright-eyed filmmaker whose dream it is to remake the first film of the gaudy and offensive ’80s slasher franchise Camp Miasma. She goes to the location where the film was shot to meet with Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), the star and final girl of the film Kris hopes to reboot. In the decades since its release, Billy has quit acting and become a bit of a recluse who now lives on the abandoned set of the fictional summer camp.

There is a mysterious air about Billy that both intrigues and scares Kris. When Kris asks why she would choose to live at an old sleepaway camp, she calmly responds that “someone has to be here when Little Death comes back”—Little Death being the fictional killer in the Camp Miasma franchise. Billy immediately follows this claim with a boisterous laugh, assuring Kris that she is not as crazy as she seems and understands that the story of the films was not real.

Young Kris. MUBI

It is this bait and switch in Billy’s behavior that draws Kris further into her orbit as the “real world” seems to fall away from both of them. Kris explains that seeing the original film at a young age not only put her on the path to becoming a filmmaker but opened her up to the idea that she was gay, calling it her queer awakening. She has never been sure about anything in her life the way that she is sure about the Camp Miasma franchise and what it and, in turn, Billy mean to her. Meanwhile, Billy is aware of the effect that she and the film had on people because it had a similar effect on her, too.

There is a sexual tension that feels inherent between the two characters as Kris explains her fascination with the moment in the film in which Billy’s character loses her virginity while, at the same time, getting attacked by Little Death. As the two become closer, Kris admits that despite what she said in her original pitch for the reboot, she does not want to recreate this moment on film. Rather, she wants to live it with Billy herself.

In true Schoenbrun fashion, as Kris and Billy grow closer, the markings of the world around them become more fantastical and dreamlike. Both Kris and the audience become unsure of what is the continued “real life” storyline and what is now Kris and Billy needing to survive Little Death as he returns from the bottom of the lake to kill them. It is a sexy, confusing, and tantalizing ride these two characters take as they try to escape their fate together.

Jane Schoenbrun on set. MUBI

Media on Media

All three of Schoenbrun’s main protagonists—Casey in World’s Fair, Owen in TV Glow, and Kris in Camp Miasma—use the media they love as a form of self-expression. All three of these characters are confused, unsure of how they operate and exist within this world, and use this media to escape into a world that makes sense. Casey’s is a cautionary tale about the new age of isolation that comes with growing up on the internet, specifically YouTube. Owen does not like girls or boys; instead he “like TV shows,” as he tells Maddy on those bleachers. And Kris uses film to experience the feelings she is too afraid to feel in real life, knowing desire only through what she finds in the depths of these old movies.

There is also the undeniable element that Schoenbrun has used Camp Miasma as a vehicle to evince their frustrations with the current era of Hollywood and filmmaking as a whole. The first half of this film operates as a very thorough takedown of the creative chokehold that Hollywood executives have over filmmakers and writers while Schoenbrun simultaneously carves a new path through the traditional idea of a slasher, almost saying, “See what we can do if you’d only let us try?”

Memorable Performances

It would be completely neglectful of me not to highlight the beautiful performances by the leads. As someone whose TV glowed the first time I saw Agent Dana Scully on my screen, I knew Gillian Anderson’s mere presence would be a delight, but I could not have predicted how truly moved I would be by her in this work. Not only is this probably one of my favorite performances from her ever, there is something that feels very earned in the role. The character of Billy Presley and her impact on Kris’s life feel like an homage to Anderson’s own legacy and spot in a culture that didn’t always treat her with the level of seriousness that she deserved. The complexities of her character play so well to Anderson’s wide range and a confidence that comes from decades honing one’s ability.

Meanwhile, the level and type of comedy that Camp Miasma brings to the screen is pretty much Hannah Einbinder’s bread and butter at this point. Coming off of her five-year run as Ava Daniels on the HBO series Hacks (which was not only her first acting job but a role she won an Emmy for in 2025), she is well versed in this type of sincerity-comedy that is laced with as many jokes as vulnerable and gut-wrenching moments. Unsurprisingly, she plays both sides of the coin here with ease, allowing for an acute level of humanity and relatability to shine through Kris that would not have worked without her skill. I think she is a really interesting actor with a very fruitful career ahead of her. And though it is still early for her, she has already gotten to make out on screen with some of Hollywood’s best—Anderson, Jean Smart, and Christina Hendricks—so the cards really seem to be on her side.

MUBI

With Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Jane Schoenbrun closes out the Screen Trilogy series by reminding us what there is to discover on the other side of the darkest parts of ourselves. As Casey and Owen and Kris have so bravely shared their insides, scooped out by the shovel of doubt and shame, they have also taught us the way forward. The aspects of queer life and identity that Schoenbrun has chosen to highlight through their work have given many the opportunity to see our lives beyond the glow of our screens, and for that, they’ll always be an icon to me.