Two of the year’s most talked-about horror films are quite different in their narratives and in their tones. Obsession is a contemporary story that is fully grounded in the real world, despite the otherworldly premise of a wish accidentally being granted and leading towards deadly consequences. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, on the other hand, is a metatextual dissection and love letter to horror movies and the personal revelations seemingly superficial stories can lead to.
In an exclusive conversation between Obsession costume designer Blair James and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma costume designer Kendra Terpenning, the pair broke down their experiences on the two films, their biggest influences, and more.
Curry Barker’s Obsession occupies a unique space, as everything about this universe feels real, though the overall look and tone feels ethereal and otherworldly. Of creating that tone, James explained, “It’s built on the idea that it’s real and these are real people experiencing these very scary, obscure things. That was definitely my inspiration for Obsession — wanting to make things feel really real so that it was just scary because it was real life and real humans experiencing scary things.”
The more referential nature of Camp Miasma meant Terpenning drew more direct inspiration from classics in the genre, noting, “[Writer/director] Jane [Schoenbrun] wanted to give tribute to some iconic characters from other actual existing horror franchises. So we have a lot of Sleepaway Camp. We have some Halloween, naturally, some Friday the 13th.” Another key component of the movie was creating an all-new slasher icon in Little Death, with Terpenning revealing, “One of the maybe more obscure [references] would be our lead antagonist, Little Death. The costume is inspired by the plastic that Laura Palmer washed up on the beach wrapped in, in the first episode of Twin Peaks.”
Honoring the ’80s was easier said than done for Terpenning, especially given the movie’s blood and gore. She recalled, “Parts of Miasma, the film within the film, are set in 1983, I need historically accurate clothing in resets, which is not something you can just like run out to… our vendors who give us like archival stuff from the era are invaluable… but I can’t take their garment and cut into it so that some guts can fall out.”
The visual style of Obsession was what proved to be a challenge for Blair, given how much of the movie was shrouded in darkness.
“I actually tried to watch the preview of it on my TV during the day and I was like, I cannot see a single thing on my TV right now,” James confessed. “I knew that going in, I met with the DP, Taylor Clemens and Curry and we talked about the overall look… And a lot of the colors, a lot of people would be like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know the dress that Sarah and Nikki wear is purple.’ And it almost looks black, which I think some people might be upset by, but I actually liked that all the colors got darkened because they felt like the red, it made the red more jarring.”
You can enjoy the full conversation between the two below. Obsession is available on home video now and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma lands on Mubi on October 3.
