There is a feeling, stuck in a memory, of being open minded to everything. Youth and a rooted unknowing feeling that forces us to take life like a fire hose.
This full throttle, “experience everything at once, as a whole, and process as it happens” approach in it’s devilish lack of sensibility is exactly the way to press play on Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.
Jane Schoenbrun makes movies unlike anyone in movies currently. Their style is much more David Lynch and Chris Carter television than Blumhouse horror. Not that their is anything wrong with the latter, but the former sits in an era passed by time.
Schoenbrun’s 2024 feature I Saw the TV Glow was a thought provoking, brain worm that asked all the right questions that you would never think to answer. That film is dark and broody; the movie makes the audience sit and watch and ponder what is real if we don’t want to accept it or understand it fully.
I went into I Saw The TV Glow having not known much other than the indie film world hype. I left asking myself (you can read those May 2024 questions here) how much about a movie should I know in advance. Should I let any interviews with the filmmaker enter my orbit, to let my impressions be steered.
The answer dear reader, is an emphatic NO. Especially with a Jane Schoenbrun film.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is all at once a loving and endearing love letter to the grungy horror VHS tapes we grew up on and a deliriously original film about total self acceptance.
Naming the summer camp Miasma, a word that means (I had to look it up) “heavy, pervasive atmosphere of corruption, gloom, or despair” is inspired work. That is exactly the feeling soaking through the wallpaper and the floorboards of the cabins and remote theater.
So much so you start to wonder if that briny smell is coming from the theater…or Camp Miasma itself.
In respect to the ethos of “going in blind” I won’t spill too much on the story or the plot. If you appreciate emotional writing that pokes not just at the surface but gets it’s finger “in there”, Camp Miasma is a marvel.
Visually, the movie is a watercolor, neon fuzzed nightmare trap that moves between three primary mediums: modern digital camera work, practical effects matte painting (James Cameron eat your heart out), and Schoenbrun’s signature overlapping of crackly, 90’s era content.
The dynamic between star Hannah Einbinder and the genre queen herself Gillian Anderson is palpable and feels real. That tactile nature to their relationship makes the descent into blood soaked freedom so satisfying and believable. Camp Miasma is the best Buddy Comedy of the year.
There is so much more to be celebrated (the sound, the music, Ava Victor’s mohawk) than could be put in a spoiler free review.
Leave any conception of what a movie could or should be, and catch this instant cult classic as soon as you can.
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