The I SAW THE TV GLOW filmmaker reinvents the slasher with razor-sharp meta commentary, gallons of blood, and surprising emotional depth.
Jane Schoenbrun is, for my money, one of the most exciting new auteurs working today. While their debut, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, became an indie sensation that somehow transcended the pandemic through sheer word of mouth, it was I Saw the TV Glow that truly announced the arrival of a singular voice in queer horror. More than just a meditation on nostalgia, it was a deeply affecting exploration of identity, delivered with a dreamlike emotional power that lingered long after the credits rolled.
For their latest feature, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, which I caught during its Canadian premiere at Fantasia, Schoenbrun turns their gaze toward another formative obsession: the slasher film.
The film follows Kris (Hannah Einbinder), a polyamorous, gay filmmaker whose breakout Sundance success has landed her the unenviable task of rebooting the long-dormant Camp Miasma franchise. Imagine Friday the 13th colliding with Sleepaway Camp, complete with a trans killer named Little Death, who rises from the lake where they drowned wearing a makeshift air vent mask and proceeds to unleash spectacularly bloody carnage.
Schoenbrun gleefully skewers the absurd conventions of the slasher genre—Little Death’s kills send literal geysers of blood erupting from victims—while simultaneously celebrating everything that makes these films so irresistible. The opening sequence brilliantly chronicles the fictional franchise’s rise during the ’80s slasher boom and its inevitable descent into cultural irrelevance, functioning as both affectionate parody and loving homage.
When we first meet Kris, she initially appears to embody the archetypal slasher bookworm: awkward, bespectacled, perpetually wrapped in oversized sweaters, and hopelessly earnest. She’s traveling to convince the original Camp Miasma star, Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), to return for the reboot. After surviving the original film, Billy vanished from the public eye, only to resurface living at the very camp where the movie was shot.
Anderson is phenomenal as a Dolly Parton-esque faded scream queen, equal parts glamorous, tragic, and deeply enigmatic. As Kris gets to know Billy, she reveals that her own queer, asexual awakening was sparked by the vacant expression in Billy’s eyes during an exploitative sex scene in the original film. It’s a wonderfully Schoenbrun idea—finding personal meaning in what was originally intended as cheap exploitation.
While the film continues Schoenbrun’s ongoing exploration of queer identity and sexuality, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is also an uproariously funny meta-comedy about the state of horror in our current IP-obsessed cinematic hellscape. That was perhaps my biggest surprise: just how genuinely hilarious the film is. Its humor is incredibly specific, often delightfully awkward, and perfectly tuned to a certain breed of obsessive film nerds—and, frankly, those of us on the spectrum.
Kris’s almost fetishistic obsession with specific candy brands borders on parody-level product placement (Schoenbrun later admitted during the Q&A that they simply love those candies), while the director’s passion for fast food leads to an extended conversation about dipping sauces that somehow becomes one of the funniest—and strangely sexiest—scenes in the film, thanks largely to Gillian Anderson’s impeccable delivery.
Einbinder shoulders an incredibly demanding role and delivers one of the year’s best performances. She effortlessly shifts between deadpan comedy, heartbreaking vulnerability, and a nuanced portrait of someone trying to rediscover intimacy on their own terms. Across from her, Anderson gives one of the richest performances of her career. Billy exists somewhere between maternal figure, faded icon, and unexpected romantic possibility for Kris, creating a relationship that is as emotionally complex as it is unconventional.
Beyond its exploration of identity, the film also examines the exploitation women endured within the slasher boom and some of the genres more problematic tendencies. One seemingly throwaway line carries remarkable weight when Billy remarks, “Nothing could surprise me—I auditioned for The Burning.” Horror fans will immediately recognize the sting beneath the joke. The 1981 slasher was produced by Harvey Weinstein and written by his brother Bob, turning an offhand quip into a pointed commentary on the industry’s long history of abuse.
While Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma revisits many of Schoenbrun’s familiar thematic concerns, it approaches them from an entirely fresh perspective. This is both a deeply personal story of sexual reawakening and one of the smartest love letters to slasher cinema in recent memory. Schoenbrun has an uncanny ability to wield nostalgia without becoming trapped by it, using it as emotional shorthand for genre fans while never alienating viewers who don’t immediately light up at a Pamela Springsteen reference.
With Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Jane Schoenbrun further cements themselves as not just one of the defining voices in queer cinema, but one of horror’s most vital contemporary filmmakers. They take the well-worn slasher formula, inject it with piercing emotional and cultural subtext, and somehow still deliver exactly what the genre promises: plenty of blood, boobs and one hell of a body count.
Check out the intro and Q&A from Fantasia:
