Filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow) shows off their playful side with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, a meta slasher that celebrates sexual self-discovery, releasing in theaters on August 7.
It stars Hannah Einbinder as Kris, a young queer filmmaker tasked with rebooting the Camp Miasma franchise. When Kris seeks out the slasher’s original final girl, Billy (Gillian Anderson), she finds art imitating life as the pair are thrust into a blood-soaked delirium of fear and desire.
Schoenbrun lovingly crafts an irreverent homage to films like Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp, even developing extensive lore behind the film’s fictional 14-film Camp Miasma franchise. That the film’s two leads are deeply entrenched in the world of horror filmmaking also inspired Schoenbrun to provide homework, a list of films and material on slashers, a move made all the more helpful considering that both Einbinder and Anderson are new to the realm of slashers.
It wasn’t just informative about Camp Miasma‘s horror, but the burgeoning desire between Kris and Billy.
Einbinder explains in a chat with Bloody Disgusting, “Slashers and horror in general create a real visceral feeling in the body. I think that was important to access when understanding what was sexually exciting to Kris, and ultimately to Billy as well. So yeah, I definitely think that’s why I wanted to watch those films and tap into that. I think it’s true of horror in general, but I think specifically for the fantasy that’s being kind of expressed and explored within Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, I think that, that was the thing that I was trying to tap into.”
“I decidedly did not watch the list because I am not a horror fan or aficionado,” Anderson adds. “But I did read a lot of essays about the genre and the different genres, and a lot of what I read felt like an education and felt like it informed the choices that I made as Billy.”
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma makes for a truly blood-soaked first foray into slashers, too.
Just how bloody? “The blood is definitely intense,” Einbinder says of her first slasher experience. “I have sensory issues, like sound and certain sensations on my skin. This really tapped into one of my most visceral discomforts, which is any liquid on my skin, and then a fabric touching that. Even if it’s water, it makes my skin crawl.”
Einbinder cites an ultra-bloody scene as an example: “So, to be in sticky blood and then have the blood rain down, and have the blood fill up the bed underneath me, sitting in like a soaking bed for multiple takes. For the first take, it was dry. And then when we reset, we kept the same bed. I would get into the soaking bed as if it were not soaking. It’s just such an overwhelming kind of feeling for me specifically, I think. There was a lot happening that kind of contributed to my anguish and discomfort, and I used it, as they said.”
