Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

Yasmin J. Lee 9/25/2026 6:16:21PM 8.4

# Analysis of Jane Schoenbrun’s “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” (2026) ### “I saw ya and wanted to scare ya. It’s only fair, right? You already seen me.” It is no secret that Jane Schoenbrun (they/them) references pop culture throughout their filmography. The Pink Opaque of *I Saw the TV Glow* (2024) was derivative of *Buffy the Vampire Slayer,* while *Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma* (2026) nodded to slasher flicks ranging from *Peeping Tom* (1960) to *Wes Craven’s New Nightmare* (1994) and *Sleepaway Camp* (1983). Beneath the references and homages, Schoenbrun also engages with time, pushing audiences to stay present in their stories and in themselves. By referencing essential slashers and confronting time, Schoenbrun puts their work in direct conversation with the genre’s aesthetics and flaws, using time as an open door to opportunity and rebirth throughout their latest horror film, *Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma* (2026). Schoenbrun crystallizes and confronts their love for the slasher subgenre in *Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma* (2026). It is apparent that, while holding slashers in high regard, Schoenbrun is critical of the genre as vastly male-centered. Most, if not all, weapons in slasher films are phallic objects; statistically, a young female character is often the first to die, and women experience significantly more prolonged, graphic, and severe violence on-screen. Rather than criticizing the genre as a whole, Jane Schoenbrun takes on the challenge of queering the genre. For instance, in *Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,* the depiction of orifices is prevalent. Little Death’s VHS tape player at the bottom of the lake resembles a vaginal opening. The air conditioning unit on his head is like a portal that still honors the motif of most horror film killers being modeled after blue-collar workers. Little Death even wears a white-vinyl raincoat suit reminiscent of Patrick Bateman from Mary Harron’s *American Psycho* (2000). > e.g., Jason Voorhees of *Friday the 13th* wears rugged groundskeeper clothes; Michael Myers of *Halloween* wears iconic navy-blue mechanic coveralls; Leatherface of *The Texas Chain Saw Massacre* dons slaughterhouse/butcher work clothes. (MorphCostumes Team, “Why Michael Myers is the Ultimate Horror Costume.”) In addition to the previously listed images, Schoenbrun also represents orifices as portals. The barn and movie theater openings, the parting of the silver-screen curtains, and the gas station setting all operated as portals into meaningful chapters of the story. One of the film’s most recognizable female-centered images is the infamous dipping sauce scene. Gillian Anderson’s Billy Presley thumps her pink-painted nail against the dipping sauce flab as Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder, character pronouns she/they) licks her lips with anticipation. The honey mustard sauce is revealed to the audience before a chicken tender is dipped into its golden wonder. Schoenbrun depicts this otherwise mundane dinner as a ritualistic, orgasmic experience of intimacy between Kris and Billy. The female gaze is further complicated when Billy recounts her first orgasm to Kris. As helpless slasher-flick victims, the femme characters can see themselves through Little Death’s perspective. This queering of perspective complicates what the camera captures, especially in the slasher genre. Rather than objectifying the lead femmes to the masculine, heterosexual perspective, Schoenbrun’s perspective externalizes their sexual repression. This tension releases when they become both voyeur and submissive participants who are aware of the role they’re playing. As they shift between voyeur and victim, the film’s thesis emerges in a brief exchange between Kris and Billy about Kris’s debut feature film. Billy states Kris’s film is a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s *Psycho* (1960) from the perspective of the shower curtain. Initially, Kris is offended by this interpretation, not realizing it’s the key to their entire experience at Camp Miasma. As Laure Murat once stated in their essay, “What’s Queer about Remy, *Ratatouille*, and French Cuisine?” > “The spatial transgression of hierarchies and the visual omniscience of \[the character’s\] position confound binary constructions while acknowledging their power.” (p. 138) The shower curtain is the translucent barrier between the victim and the slasher. Kris, like the shower curtain, occupies a bifurcated space when they subject themselves to the perspective of Little Death while expressing their sexuality. Upon revisiting the film’s opening, the hack-screenwriter, Kris, enters the gas station with hungry eyes, snagging their favorite candy off the racks. The gas station sits between worlds: both destination and journey. In the third act, having survived the night of terror hosted by Little Death, Kris and Billy return to the gas station to stock up on their gummy candies. These final moments of *Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma* ask audiences to savor their pleasures and desires like candy. There are no clean conclusions for this tale of gender euphoria and escapism. This natural desire for an ending prompts audiences to ponder the story’s moral, fearing they may have missed it at first. By enjoying both the film’s ephemeral sweetness, the consumer accepts its conclusion and, hopefully, the moments that pleased them and felt representative of them. Using evanescent metaphors and making the characters cognizant of the passage of time, Schoenbrun presents a conclusion that denotes progress without answers: Time. Time does not give you an answer. It simply measures. *Enjoyed this review? 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tender_buttkiss 10/31/2026 7:04:22AM 8.4

Absolute cinema. Thought it was kinda weird, then that weirdness enveloped the whole movie and made it perfect! I can't even put into words everything that this movie elicited in me, but right off the top of my head, it made me really love the Counting Crows song A Long December. So much of this movie was unexpected and I'm grateful I went into this movie with no idea what it possibly was about, just hooked based on the title alone. It's like the best homage to every slasher ever.

Nick 10/6/2026 6:20:58AM 8.4

Horny, bloody, queer, hilarious, and completely unafraid to get weird. I loved how it takes the sleazy summer camp slasher and turns it into something surprisingly personal and sweet without losing all the gore and ridiculousness. Gillian Anderson is having an absolute blast, and Hannah Einbinder is great alongside her. It gets a little too caught up in its own ideas sometimes, but I honestly didn't care. Such a strange, messy, funny fever dream of a movie.