Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
It was the horror sensation which divided audiences between those who adored them no matter how tawdry the endless sequels became and those who protested the lewdness and violence they depicted, Camp Miasma a franchise unto itself with memorabilia including trading cards and arcade games and straight to video spinoffs running to fourteen films including “sell-outs and spoofs,” the studio now looking to reboot it and turning to director Kris Williams to reinvent it for a modern age.
Williams fully aware that she has been hired to address aspects of the original lore which have not aged well, a queer filmmaker who will shift the transphobia of the “problematic” films to make it clear the taunted misfit child who became Little Death was the victim, she wishes to meet Billy Presley, final girl of the first film, to bring an understanding which will inform the new vision, not realising the reclusive former star now lives alone at Camp Tivoli, the former shooting location.
The setting and the titles of the films in the series making it clear that it is Friday the 13th which is the inspiration, part five The Final Chapter, part six A New Beginning, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is brought back to life by writer and director Jane Schoenbrun, more mature and evolved than her debut We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and starring Hannah Einbinder as Kris, enthusiastic but lacking confidence, an outsider who knows she must prove herself in order to succeed.
Realising she will be pushing against the will of the executives to achieve her vision, once she even knows what that is, The X-Files’ Gillian Anderson is Billy, self-deprecating as she refers to Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond yet clearly modelled on her with a generous splash of Blanche Dubois on the rocks, an iconic star who knows how to make an entrance and answers only to herself and would rather glory in the past than face the present yet who inspires Kris in ways she could not have anticipated.
With Bill and Ted’s Jack Haven as Little Death, a supernatural force bringing chaos and change, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is seductive, sinister and surreal, the snow peaked mountains behind the cabins an obviously painted backdrop and the characters falling into their own world of fantasy even as the ice melts on the lake, Billy having warned that there is a hole at the bottom of the lake from which Little Death emerges, exacting bloody revenge but also bringing transformation.
Camp killer Little Death and final girl Billy bringing liberation to Kris in the soft-focus mountain getaway dreamland of perfect snow and log cabins, Camp Miasma a place where those children who survive leave as adults, existing, in Kris’ words, at the intersection of cinema and cultural depictions of monstrosity, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma makes victims of all those who cling to their pasts for fear of change and create barriers to art and self-expression.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is currently on general release
