Teenage Sex & Death at Camp Miasma

😀 Teenage Sex & Death at Camp Miasma, dir. Jane Schoenbrun, 2026, Canada/‌USA/‌UK, 112 min.
⚠️ Extreme (but extremely unrealistic) blood and gore
Saturday, June 27, 2026, 8:15 PM, Castro Theatre
🌊 West Coast premiere
🏆 Cannes 2026: Queer Palm (winner), Un Certain Regard (nominee)
🎦 Coming to theaters August 7, 2026

Teenage Sex & Death at Camp Miasma

Frameline blurb: A queer psychosexual slasher that stars Emmy-winning actors Hannah Einbinder (Hacks) and Gillian Anderson (The X-Files), Jane Schoenbrun’s latest film cements their place as one of queer and trans cinema’s most vital auteurs. In this riveting two-hander, Einbinder stars as Kris, a passionate writer who’s hired to reinvigorate their favorite horror movie franchise, Camp Miasma, after it suffers years of slapdash sequels and waning fandom.

Kris travels to an abandoned summer camp to meet the now-reclusive actress, Billy (Anderson), who played the original flick’s final girl. But as the two women unravel the ways in which Camp Miasma has shaped them, they descend into a frenzied, blood-soaked world of desire, self-discovery, and delirium.

Described as “an insane yet cozy midnight odyssey” by writer/director Schoenbrun (We're All Going to the World's Fair; I Saw the TV Glow), Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a brilliant, funny, and poignant meta meditation on the stories that make us — on final girls and their monsters — and the process of becoming.

Featuring echoes of Mulholland Drive, standout central performances, and an impeccable cast that includes Jack Haven (I Saw the TV Glow), Jasmin Savoy Brown (Yellowjackets), Eva Victor (Sorry, Baby), and Zach Cherry (Severance), Schoenbrun’s latest is a truly singular vision.

My take: To begin with, I’ve never been much of a fan of slasher films; it’s just really not my genre at all. For that reason, I haven’t seen very many of them, with the notable exception of Nightmare on Elm Street 2 (Frameline37). As for Teenage Sex & Death at Camp Miasma, the blood and gore was so over-the-top cartoonish that it didn’t bother me. In the very first scene, included in the preview linked below, someone gets slashed, and their blood fountains upward like a fire hose, blasting upward three stories high, and that sets the tone. On the down side, though, I’m certain I missed many, quite possibly dozens, of the references to famous horror films. The characters do directly discuss the blatant misogyny and homo- and transphobia that underpins so many horror films. At one point, Billy (Gillian Anderson) says to Kris (Hannah Einbinder): “You’ve remade Psycho from the perspective of the shower curtain.” Of course, I’ve seen the shower scene from Psycho, but I have never seen the whole film, so I’m sure much of the nuance of that line is lost on me.

When I was in college, a group of students went on a weekend retreat in February at a summer camp. The resident staff showed us around when we arrived, pointing out, “Over here is where Jason impaled someone with a pitchfork, and in this cabin is where Jason comes up through the floor to stab two people,” or something to that effect. I was the only person in the group who had never seen Friday the 13th, and I was, not coincidentally, the only person in the group who slept well that night.

If you are a fan of horror films, and especially slashers, Teenage Sex & Death at Camp Miasma is a love letter to you, as well as a campy satire to the edge of parody, and you don’t need me to tell you to go see it. If you’re not a fan of slasher films at all, watch the preview, which includes the multi-story fountain of blood. If that image doesn’t turn you away, you’ll probably be fine. The ride from there is wild, with a number of twists and flips along the way. Worth seeing even if you’re usually not a slasher fan; highly recommended.

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