By the time Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder) and Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson) sit down to watch the original “Camp Miasma” movie in Jane Schoenbrun’s “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” the anticipation of what you’ll see in this storied slasher – of what its villain, Little Death (Jack Haven) is capable of – is already palpable.
Think of “Camp Miasma, the fictional ‘80s slasher flick featured in Schoenbrun’s film, as “Friday the 13th,” or “Sleepaway Camp” – a horror franchise that overstayed its welcome, sequeled to death upon its initial release, left for dead, and now ripe for reimagination and renewed cultural relevancy. Kris is the young, up-and-coming queer filmmaker the studio picked to take this problematic old franchise (and it was problematic, as we’ll soon see) and make it palatable for a younger, “woker” generation.
In order to crack the code, Kris needs Billy Preston, the reclusive, Norma Desmond-esque star and final girl of the original film who lives alone at the camp where “Miasma” was filmed. Since Kris arrived, Billy has been welcoming, if a little strange, and this moment – she and Kris, watching her print of the original film together – is like a climax, of sorts. As we get to the part of the movie where the soon-to-be-murdered camp counselors explain the lore of Little Death, Kris leans over, almost excitedly, to Billy and says: “This part’s transphobic.” Billy responds with a terse whisper, completely engrossed: “Shut up!”
As the scene unfolds, it becomes clear that Kris is right – “Camp Miasma,” in particular its villain origin story, is transphobic, the subject of Little Death’s gender and gender expression ridiculed and eventually vilified. The best sequence in the film unfolds just a few minutes later as Little Death goes on a killing spree, Schoenbrun alternately putting us in the killer and the victims’ point of view, forcing us to identify with both parties. When the sequence is over, we see the look in Kris’ eyes, a sense of catharsis sharpening her expression. Yes, the lore of Little Death stems from transphobia. But the realization of Little Death is far more complicated.
As a filmmaker, Schoenbrun has always been interested in how popular mediums, particularly film and television, affect us – how popular culture, in all its grotesque, beautiful madness, can reach the parts of ourselves that we don’t quite understand, can wake up something primal in us, even if society tells us we should ignore it. “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” is a culmination of those ideas wrapped up in the history of horror, a genre that has always been about accessing repressed fears and desires – and sometimes, not being able to tell the difference between the two.
We live in a world where studios are constantly rebooting horror films and franchises, handing them to younger filmmakers who they hope might have a different take on the source material – hopefully, a take that attracts younger fans (in a recent example, Parker Finn of the “Smile” franchise is taking on 1981’s “Possession” – an odd choice for a remake, if I’ve ever heard one).
When Kris first arrives at Billy’s home, she explains the studio’s hope to Billy over a delectable meal of fried chicken (the way Gillian Anderson says “dipping sauce” with such sexual flavor should be studied in a lab). But she has a secret that the studio could never know, Kris says – for all its problems, the original “Camp Miasma” was her queer awakening.
Horror is a genre that often asks us to identify with both the “monster” and the victim, who is also often different from the other, murdered masses – it necessitates that we identify with “the other,” which can be eye-opening for anyone who has been made to feel that way in real life.
The execs don’t know that this movie helped Kris – and presumably, a number of young, questioning teens like her – understand herself better. Early modes of representation of marginalized people in films are often negative. But that doesn’t stop people from identifying with those characters, from finding some form of release in their existence.
But even Kris is wary of letting herself give into the raw feeling that a slasher flick can evoke. She gets squirrely when Billy talks about romance and sex, her own relationship to those things muted at best – the closest she usually comes to capturing that orgasmic feeling is through watching “Camp Miasma.” But she overcompensates for that by constantly letting it be known that she’s aware of the film’s issues. She’s academic to a fault – when Billy asks her about herself, she immediately brings up her work .Her last movie was a riff on “Psycho” from the perspective of the shower curtain, and her movies in general are about the intersections of queerness and depictions of monstrosity, she says.
But while Kris is intent on justifying to herself why she likes the movies she does, Billy is more blunt about their appeal. “Flesh and fluids,” she says languidly, while Kris’ brow wrinkles in dismay at the sensual, feral ease of that explanation.
That’s a simple, but not incorrect answer to the question of why horror movies have persisted in popularity for as long as they have. Through “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” Schoenbrun is reckoning with the simplest, purest power that cinema has – its ability to make us feel, to identify with someone we wouldn’t otherwise, to understand something inherent and primal about ourselves. That ability feels as dangerous as it is powerful, but there does seem to be a part of Schoenbrun leaping out of the screen, taking us by the shoulders, telling us to just let go.
While Kris and Billy are watching the first “Miasma” movie, Kris whispers the words “split diopter” to herself when she notices the camera technique on screen, a proud little smile playing on her lips. But it’s not about giving yourself a pat on the back for noticing the split diopter – it’s about how that technique makes you feel. Schoenbrun’s visual style leans into feeling more so than it does technique for technique’s sake, rolling through the textures of different eras of cinema and interested in the ways bodies move in relation to one another – both during murder and during sex. But, really, what’s the difference?
“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” is interested in the ways in which queerness ties to this particular cinematic power. Sexual and gender identity is a feeling first, something you’ve always known, and later find the language to explain. In a similar way, movies – particularly, movies we see when we’re young, when our personalities are still forming – have a way of sticking with us and molding us in ways that are beyond academic expression.
When Kris pitches her idea for the reboot script to execs, she works herself up into an orgasmic frenzy as she describes a hole in the ground at the bottom of the lake where Little Death lives. But it’s not just Little Death down there – it’s the movies themselves, Little Death conjuring up new victims, new plots, and new kills when inspiration strikes.
“We think we made the movies, but the movies made us!” she yells at the group of confused, annoyed execs. But there is a method to Kris’ madness. We think we have control over the movies, over how they make us feel. But maybe the truth is we don’t – there are some connections too strong to name, some emotions too powerful to put into words.
