'Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma' Review: Hannah Einbinder Glistens in Horny Slasher Study
- Aug 14
- 5 min read
By Seb Jenkins - August 14, 2026
Jane Schoenbrun follows the acclaimed I Saw the TV Glow with a hearty horror that both critiques and celebrates the slashers of old.
Welcome to Camp Miasma. Drop your bags at your cabin, grab your name tag from reception, and get ready for a summer of fun, games, and open-water swimming! Just keep an eye out for the immortal air-conditioner-for-a-head serial killer who lurks at the bottom of the lake. You simply have to read the small print, parents!
In Jane Schoenbrun’s latest addition to the modern horror genre, Camp Miasma is a dormant slasher franchise that rose to fame in the 1980s. Unfortunately, despite decades of sold-out action figures, board games, and lunch boxes, the latest sequels aren’t quite hitting like they used to. And with titles like ‘Medieval Miasma – Brandish the Spear’, it’s clear to see why. In an attempt to resurrect the iconic serial killer – Little Death – once more, queer filmmaker Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is hired to oversee a reboot. But even up-and-coming Sundance producer Kris is all too aware that they were just brought in to add a layer of woke armour to an old IP with some out-of-touch transphobic history.
In order to truly understand what made the first Camp Miasma so life-changing, Kris embarks on a trip to the Pacific Northwest to visit the original final girl – Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson). The reclusive scream queen dropped off the face of the earth after Camp Miasma’s release, but she didn’t drop far, as Kris finds her living in the abandoned campgrounds where the first movie was filmed. And Billy is waiting for someone…
“Someone’s gotta be here… when Little Death comes back.”
“If you’ve seen his movies, you know… he always comes back.”
But Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is no normal meta horror flick. This one comes with a scoop of camp, a sprinkle of sexual awakening, and a horny drizzle of rich chocolate sauce. Gillian Anderson is, of course, the cherry on top. Despite arriving at Billy’s house hoping to convince her to cameo in the reboot, Kris soon finds a rather stimulating chemistry with their on-screen hero that sends them tumbling down a rabbit hole of self-discovery. As Schoenbrun themselves puts it: Portrait of a Lady on Fire set in a Friday the 13th sequel.
Fans of Schoenbrun’s work will know that their horror films are often deeply rooted in long-standing social issues. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair depicted identity dissociation and isolation. I Saw the TV Glow served as a heartbreaking trans allegory and depicted the devastating suffocation of staying closeted. In Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (TSADACM), Schoenbrun showcases the difficulty of enjoying sex pre-transition, while also shining a light on the harmful gender stereotypes peddled by some of the genre's most iconic titles.
In an interview with Filmmaker Magazine, Schoenbrun said: “My next movie is all about sex -essentially a movie about learning to enjoy sex after transition. Pre-transition, it wasn’t that I was asexual - I had plenty of desire - but having good sex in the wrong body was impossible. What was available was full dissociation, which is obviously a theme in the first two films.”
The slasher genre in particular has a long and problematic history with gender deviance. In Psycho, Norman Bates commits murders while wearing his dead mother’s clothes and acting with her personality. That ‘creepy crossdresser’ trope is far from isolated, with Silence of the Lambs, Dressed to Kill, and Rocky Horror also falling foul. Many of these early, foundational horrors align gender deviance with themes of monstrosity, murder, and mental illness. In TSADACM, we come to learn that the origin story of Camp Miasma’s central ‘villain’ follows similar stereotypes. Little Death, a child raised as both a boy and a girl by their parents, was drowned by their campers for refusing to conform to the gender norms. Now, the ghost of Little Death periodically rises from the lake to ‘seek revenge,’ served on the tip of a spear.
What TSADACM does so beautifully is that it perfectly walks the line between love letter and slasher critique. It never feels as though Schoenbrun is here to scold those who came before, but merely to educate a more modern audience, while giving space to the trans community. With Jason Voorhees and Camp Crystal, the inspiration from Friday the 13th is clear and deliberate, but Camp Miasma glistens with its own fresh, horny style.
Hannah Einbinder gives a career-best performance as Kris struggles to claim a sense of sexual enjoyment in their own body, despite experiencing so much yearning desire while watching the first Camp Miasma movie. It seems no coincidence that sex and death are so clearly linked in this film, separated by just a single word in the title. Both require a sense of surrender, power, and release. Just as love and hate are often seen as cousins, desire and fear share many of the same symptoms. Remember, death doesn’t always mean finality; it can simply be the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one.
In Billy Presley, Gillian Anderson serves as the perfect spirit guide on that journey to self-discovery. With a Dolly Parton-esque accent that oozes out of the screen like warm caramel, Billy teaches Kris about the art of viewing oneself through the lustful lens of a third person – even if that person turns out to be a spear-wielding serial killer. Even the running candy motif that litters this nods to this sense of orgasmic indulgence. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a celebration of that raw sexuality. It takes the old helpless horror girl tropes of bouncing boobs, perky nipples, and skimpy underwear and reclaims them as Kris overcomes the suffocating fear of their own sexuality.
And despite this important, beautiful, underlying message, it has so much fun along the way. Einbinder is spellbinding. Anderson is electric. The laughs feel like a hug, and the horror easter eggs like a treasure hunt. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is undoubtedly one of the best horrors you will see this year. And I, for one, can’t wait to see what Jane Schoenbrun does next.
'Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma' releases in cinemas from August 21, 2026.
Want more film reviews? Dive into more reviews, rankings, and film conversations on our site. Explore Film Focus Online now!
