After the releases and back-to-back successes of their narrative feature debut, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, and their A24 film I Saw the TV Glow, writer-director Jane Schoenbrun has become a name to watch in horror. The latter of the two films, with Justice Smith and Jack Haven starring, was particularly hailed as one of the best in the genre of 2024, and helped solidify the filmmaker in the public eye with a personal story about self-discovery and themes of transgender identity. Now, they’re back with a much-anticipated follow-up that looks to explore that looks to broach similar topics through a very meta horror lens. It also has two big stars at the helm in Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson, ready to enter a slasher-centric fever dream.
Mubi has released a first look at Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, spotlighting Einbinder and Anderson in a warm, dark, and tense shot, and giving big Friday the 13th vibes with another shot of an arm shooting out of a body of water with a harpoon in hand. It looks very much of a piece with the director’s previous queer horror work, while also paying homage to the classics of the slasher genre. Schoenbrun‘s latest follows a young and hungry director (Einbinder) who’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime to spearhead a resurrection of the titular Camp Miasma franchise. Not unlike many 80s slashers, it’s largely fallen out of the public eye after years of slapdash, samey sequels and waning fandom, leaving the new filmmaker with the task of finding a fresh angle. Upon visiting the original movie’s aging “final girl” (Anderson), however, she’s pulled into “a blood-soaked world of desire, fear, and delirium” with the now-reclusive actress, developing an unhealthy obsession.
Though it may continue pulling similar threads to the first two films in Schoenbrun‘s Screens Trilogy, the filmmaker has previously teased to Collider‘s Aidan Kelley that this outing will be a vastly different beast. During an interview at the Independent Spirit Awards nearly one year ago, they promised a much bloodier, more bizarre, and more mature affair compared to their more psychological horror-focused gems. “Well, my next movie’s got enough blood, gore, sex, fluids, nudity, etc. for both films,” they said. “You could take some extra out of the next one and put it into this one, and then you would still have plenty.”
When Will ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ Release?
Along with the images came news that viewers will be able to visit Camp Miasma in theaters starting on August 7. The Emmy-winning Hacks star Einbinder and X-Files alum Anderson will be joined on-screen by a deep supporting cast, too, including Amanda Fix, Arthur Conti, Eva Victor, Zach Cherry, Sarah Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Quintessa Swindell, and Kevin McDonald. After venturing to the Midnight Realm in I Saw the TV Glow, Haven is also reuniting with Schoenbrun in a supporting role. The film was financed and will be distributed by Mubi around the world, with Plan B producing.
Schoenbrun is keeping very busy even beyond Camp Miasma. March 5 will also mark the debut of their first novel, Public Access Afterworld, another story of two teens and a television. It starts with David Sawyer and Erin Morrison, two TV-obsessed friends who may be falling in love, as they watch the transition from analog to digital in 2009. When Erin witnesses surreal broadcasts from the titular Public Access Afterworld amid the static, though, she vanishes shortly thereafter, adding to a mystery that, years later, would catch the attention of content moderator Bethany Peters. They start going against their megacorporation employer to rescue a streamer named Jules, who keeps calling out the same Public Access Afterworld, sending her on an unlikely hero’s journey across decades and the United States to breach the gates of the mysterious reality. As of last October, Schoebrun was also set to make their television debut by adapting and directing Charles Burns’ Black Hole comics for Netflix.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma premieres in theaters on August 7. Check out the first images in the gallery above.
via Collider