REVIEW: Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

Hello cinema lovers. Jane Schoenbrun's Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a gory yet tender slasher that dares you to love the monster. A wonderful, quirky love letter to Friday the 13th that lands mostly because of two believable leads, despite the complicated plot.

Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder) is a young queer filmmaker hired to reboot Camp Miasma, a cheesy slasher franchise that began in the '80s and has since been run into the ground by cheap sequels. The movie's killer is Little Death, the ghost of a child raised as both boy and girl. Murdered by hateful campers in a terrible hate crime, they rise from the lake with a spear in hand, looking for revenge. Killing any hapless camp counsellors they meet. Think Jason Voorhees but with added gender fluidity.

Kris knows the premise of the original movie is transphobic. She loves the series anyway and wants to rehabilitate and modernise the franchise. To get her reboot moving, she travels to the snowy Pacific Northwest to court Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson). She's the original movie's final girl, who quit acting and lives on the abandoned camp where the first film was shot. Billy is warm and perceptive, but she is also obsessed with her horror movie past.

Einbinder plays her character with a sugar-fuelled anxious edge. Kris talks about Camp Misawa in terms of cinema theory and hides behind a professional edge to mask her desperation in making this project a success. She plays that desperation with great affection and never lets her character's loneliness show when she admits sex has never come easily.

Anderson puts in an amazing performance too shes both droll and seductive in equal measure. A Norma Desmond homage in a snowcapped cabin that never tips into cheap pastiche. Billy sees straight through Kris and recognises a kindred spirit, and their scenes crackle with sexy energy.

Schoenbrun writes and directs this project with a fan's love and possibly obsession. The opening credits cram in franchise merchandise and fading sequel reviews. Camp Miasma feels real here; the imagery is very directly lifted from the Friday the 13th franchise.

The cinematography is vivid, and some backdrops deliberately resemble matte paintings. When the gore arrives, it is over the top, reminiscent of Tarantino's Kill Bill. The script is sharp and funny, but repeats itself a little. The meta commentary is interesting and imaginative but can be a bit dense; sometimes it feels like ideas don't quite land

Slashers have a long history of making gender difference the source of the horror. Schoenbrun keeps the monster and changes its purpose. Little Death is a tragic character murdered in cold blood.

The film gives that history weight, but they represent desire in a strange narrative flip, and Schoenbrun's experience as a trans person informs the characters' identity. This project shows echoes of Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which must be a direct inspiration for meta themes involving a long-running horror franchise.

Sexual desire is everywhere here. The killer is called Little Death, la petite mort, and sex and dying share the frame. Kris can only enjoy sex when she imagines herself as a sexualised final girl. Billy's own story about the original movie's sex scene is dark, and the film lets it be truly bleak.

Where movies like Cruel Intentions treat desire as danger, here the director treats it as blessed release. Kris's polyamory is named without fuss. The sex on show here is intense and sincere, presented unashamedly, and quite right too.

Truly recommended. Funny, bonkers and unafraid of its own excess. Come for the '80s slashers styling and stay for Anderson's cool, crisp performance.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is available to stream in the UK on the MUBI Amazon Channel and Apple TV from 1 October 2026.