I would watch ALL of these movies and probably in one sitting too.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a must-see for hardcore slasher fans
Aafter watching Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma — a title that will certainly be a bane to anyone who puts letters on theater marquees for a living — my first reaction was “give Jane Schoenbrun the licenses to Friday the 13th: A Nightmare on Elm Street AND Sleep camp and put them back in NOW.
The opening title sequence of Camp Miasma ALONE is better than 95% of the horror films we’ve seen so far in 2026. It’s an absolute fanatical love-in of the genre that manages to boil the entire slasher film canon in a four-minute multimedia jubilee of fake VHS covers, nonexistent Topps trading cards, fake arcade machines, imaginary figurines, and a deluge of facsimiles of clickbait horror website articles bemoaning the entire subgenre as “problematic” trash. It’s a stunning meta montage that informs you right off the bat that Jane knows his stuff when it comes to slasher arts.
Somehow the film only manages to get better from there.
The movie is obviously a parody of Friday the 13th myth, right down to having a central antagonist who rises from the depths of a lake to rain bloody death on anyone stupid enough to smoke weed and have premarital sex. her playing fields. Of course, instead of a hockey mask, the franchise killer in the movie in the movie Camp Miasma The series sports another type of face covering: an air conditioning vent. He look at cooler than it looks, believe me.
You just assume the director behind I saw the TV glow will attract all of us deconstructionists and while that East the case in Camp Miasmait’s not exactly the vivisection of barbed wire tropes you might expect. Indeed, Schoenbrun (who also wrote the film) clearly has a passion and respect for the F13 tradition and never aims for the low-hanging fruit. They never really make fun of the source material and goes out of its way to paint it as deceptively insightful form of sordid low culture. Unlike so many comments about meta-slashers, Camp Miasma never mock or criticize the kind of people who love stuff like Jason lives Or The fire. Obviously, it’s because Jane is one of us.
As Shout, Camp Miasma is a film firmly aware of its own heritage and lineage. An important plot point of the film clearly echoes Sleep camp and there are numerous references to Wes Craven’s new nightmare and the Blum house Halloween trilogy. It is a film which exists into our real-world horror culture mixer, to the point where Pamela Springsteen, Heather Langenkamp AND Felissa Rose all make themselves known in casual conversations. Yet nothing in Camp Miasma it’s still fan service just for the sake of being fan service. There is real depth and nuance here, starting with the outstanding performances of its two protagonists.
Camp Miasma can seem like a tribute to all things F13 (and it is), but when it comes down to it, the two biggest cinematic influences on the film aren’t even horror films – it’s Bergman’s. Character And Sunset Boulevard.
Hannah Einbinder Tips fame, plays Kris, an up-and-coming 29-year-old director who is chosen to reboot a long-dormant zombie IP about a campground killer (sound familiar?) simply because she’s queer, poly, and seems like the best filmmaker suited to tackle the franchise’s issues. inherent homophobia and transphobia for modern audiences. She wants to bring back the star of the original Camp Miasma 1980s film – Gillian Anderson as Billy Presley, in what could be a dark horse performance for an Oscar nominee – but she is a recluse who literally lives on the set of the film in the aforementioned film. Kris therefore visits her in the middle of winter and tries to convince her to resume her last female role, 40 years after the fact.
This seems like a pretty rudimentary thing, but you KNOW it’s not going to play out as clearly as it seems. Over the course of the film, Billy slowly seduces Kris – physically, emotionally, and perhaps even spiritually – and then surreality begins to set in.
It’s hard to dig too deep into the waters here, because even giving a slight spoiler here and there dislodges the big reveal at the very end. Let’s just say that the realms of fantasy, reality and fantasy reality everything becomes blurry, everything taking on this fantasy quality that could be a dream, could be a flashback, could be a hallucination and/or could be the incredible truth taking place in real time. It’s not as trippy like I saw the TV glowbut he’s not afraid to screw up. And it will be certainly will make you think twice the next time you see a still-working VCR And a half-eaten bag of Sour Patch Kids.
The reenactments of the film within the film are only delicious. Jane understands the aura and attitude of 80s slashers so well that you wish they would let them direct a full spin-off. Simply the director gets the appeal and appeal of the subgenre and never denigrates the audience. It’s a cheeky, funny and sardonic film at times, but when it is, it’s generally preying on different types of targets – like studio execs who constantly prattle on about the virtues of “legacy sequels” even though it’s obvious they have no idea what they’re talking about.
And we get a lot of stylized gore in this movie. I mean, it’s a loving ode to the first eight Friday the 13th films, so it’s almost obligatory. There is one murder in particular that comes straight from Death Nerf Twitch and in a strange way, this seems to sum up the general theme of the film as a whole: it is, at least, a film about research comfort and privacy in the most fucked up places.
I really can’t brag Camp Miasma enough. When it’s time for me to make my top ten list of 26 best horror films, this thing will be VERY high on the countdown. This isn’t just one of the best meta-slashers we’ve had this decade, it’s one of the best authentic the slashers we got in the 2020s. It’s a sincere and affectionate film about a style of cinema that isn’t even respected. as much by hardcore horror movie fans.
I mean, it’s a film about a total massacre “Long December” by Counting Crows. If that doesn’t scream “buy a ticker IMMEDIATELY”, what is?
GIVE A WATCH IF YOU LIKE: KFC dips, aged sapphism, flesh and/or liquids
DIRECTOR: Jane Schönbrun
WRITER: Jane Schönbrun
WITH : Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson, Jack Haven, Patrick Fischler
STUDIO: Plan B Entertainment, Mubi
DISTRIBUTER: Bad
RUNNING DURATION: 112 minutes
LANGUAGE: English
RELEASE DATE: August 7, 2026
