Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026): review

The title of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma already tells you that Jane Schoenbrun is not aiming for safe mainstream horror. This is a queer meta-slasher that throws blood, desire, fandom and self-discovery into one film that initially plays like a delirious midnight movie, but quickly reveals itself to be much more carefully shaped than that surface suggests.

A filmmaker and her obsession

At the center is Kris, played by Hannah Einbinder. She is hired to revive the exhausted Camp Miasma slasher franchise and wants to bring back Billy, the former star of the original film, played by Gillian Anderson. That setup works immediately, because the movie is not only about horror, but about obsession with horror. Kris is not just a director. She is a fan, a projection and a seeker all at once. Billy, meanwhile, feels like someone who has been living inside the myth of her own screen image for years.

More than a retro homage

That is where Schoenbrun finds the film’s biggest strength. Camp Miasma is not a lazy retro homage that simply unloads references and expects applause for knowing old slashers. Instead, it asks why these stories shape us in the first place, what happens to buried shame, and how cinema can become a space for identity, desire and transformation. That may sound theoretical on paper, but here it feels sensual, playful and often very funny. Because the film is so comfortable with exaggeration, it can also afford to become direct and emotionally exposed.

Two compelling performances

It helps enormously that Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson are fantastic together. Einbinder gives Kris nervous energy, curious uncertainty and almost manic determination. Anderson turns Billy into more than an icon, making her mysterious, vulnerable and quietly controlling at the same time. Once the two women begin circling each other, the film slips deeper into a fever dream of erotic tension, horror and self-invention. Not every idea lands with perfect neatness. Some scenes feel intentionally overloaded, and some meanings are pushed very close to the surface. But that excess is also part of the design.

Verdict

Visually, the film is striking without feeling sterile. Eric K. Yue’s cinematography keeps the imagery alive, and Alex G’s score gives everything the hypnotic pull a film like this needs. Most importantly, Schoenbrun has something to say beyond genre play. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is not just an odd horror movie, but a film about how fiction shapes our desires, anxieties and self-image. The result is bloody, sensual, weird, knowingly excessive and far smarter than its title first suggests. For me, it is one of the year’s most exciting horror films and a strong 8 out of 10.