Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma: Film Review

In both films, though, I find interesting a focus on the specific effect of media in the home, broadly realized in both as television. Glow examines a television show and Miasma examines a film, but the protagonists of both films both have core pieces of their identity revealed to themselves in the same way: in the dark, at home, sitting crisscross-applesauce, mere feet away from a 30-inch screen.

There's a fascinating book from 1985 by Neil Postman called Amusing Ourselves to Death about the power of a screen in the home. The greater argument of Postman's book is that the constant stream of information disseminated on television, in conjunction with the favor and popularity of the mass medium, has led it to become "the command center of the new epistemology." He claims it will have a dangerous, Huxleyan effect on the future wherein we fall in love with technology that controls us. 

Its relevance to Schoenbrun's films is interesting as they both present an interesting parallel to Postman's argument: what is the effect of the immediacy of the at-home screen on the adolescent psyche? Postman remarks in his book that "television is our culture’s principal mode of knowing about itself," and in both of Schoenbrun's last two films, we study characters who learn about themselves, as children, on television. Adolescents have obviously moved to cell phones now for their brain-shaping media, but for older Gen-Z and millennials, that box - the "idiot" box that living rooms in almost every American home are structured around - held power. 

I would say both films also strongly remind me of the 1989 film Videodrome, where director David Cronenberg realizes a physically sexual fascination with television as his protagonist is slowly taken over by a hypnotic, violently fetishistic television broadcast. The body horror classic blends the themes of sex, violence, and television a bit clumsily, in my opinion, but Schoenbrun’s films, particularly Camp Miasma due to its specific visual references, present them in a much calmer, queerer, and, ultimately, more effective manner. 

Her diatribe - an almost TED talk on reutilizing the queer and gender elements in the slasher and how late-stage capitalism has enforced this age of remakes - was music to my ears. Anderson’s Billy later calmly confronts her, joint in hand, expressing displeasure with her need to speak “academically” when those films (and the genre) were only ever about "flesh and fluids." 

This generational difference in the reception of “classics” is an interesting framing device for the film because, as the audience is allowed to deduce, the film-within-the-film is so clearly about everything Einbinder's character said it was and what Anderson’s character said it wasn’t (trans-ness and the monstrous identity). That dichotomy is present for much of Camp Miasma and smartly reinforces the satire of the story. 

The biggest surprise in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma: my response to the character of Little Death. The silent character, played campily and wonderfully by Jack Haven, is a genderfluid Jason-style killer whose returns and subsequent bloody killing sprees are the starting point for every entry in the fictional franchise. The character’s metaphorical nature (in relation to the main story) is obvious to anyone who speaks french, but their personal motivation for haunting the narrative, established in the brief and satirically offensive time spent on their backstory, is one of shocking emotional resonance. I became teary-eyed on both watches during their important, Counting Crows backed killing spree, which was, all at once, vengeful, bloody, cathartic, and liberating.

Important context: Schoenbrun has said several times that this film is about finding joy in sex post-transition, and this is in fact the first story they wrote post-transition. Their first narrative feature, We're All Going to the World's Fair (which I have not seen, but to my knowledge, also examines media’s effect on a young person - albeit through a video game), and I Saw the TV Glow were conceived both post-coming-out but pre-transition.

There were people who somehow missed the overt transgender allegory of I Saw the TV Glow - a film with a 30-second shot of the chalked-out phrase, “There is still time” - so I’m glad Schoenbrun doubled down with this story: a simultaneous allegory for sexual identity/desire and satire of the horror genre. The slasher sheen only barely disguises what is most simply a story about orgasms. It’s obvious and, at times, spends too much time explaining the obvious - a third act monologue from Anderson literalizes the libidinal metaphor that was already quite clear - but it saves itself by being obviously self-aware. 

My favorite aspect of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is that it honors the horror genre's flaws and uses them to its advantage. Schoenbrun clearly knows the problems are there, but loves the genre anyway. I've always felt that you should be able to talk shit about your favorite movie, and that otherwise, it's not your favorite movie. I’m inclined to believe Schoenbrun agrees. 

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma was my first five-star film of 2026. I first saw it two weeks before seeing The Odyssey (which I gave a five-star review here), saw it again one week after The Odyssey, and will likely see it again at least two more times. Jane Schoenbrun is one of the most unique filmmakers working today and is a direct influence on my coming around to the horror genre. This film is more of a commentary on the genre than anything else, but it’s the realization of their relationship with media that has struck me each time. They make films to honor the adolescents like me, both past and future, stuck in front of a screen, learning about themselves, and amusing themselves to (little) death.

Viewed on 6/30/26 at Press Screening

Published on 8/3/26