Filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun burst onto the indie film scene in early 2021 with We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, a wholly unique thriller that announced a new talent on the scene, someone with a perspective and plenty of life experience to plumb in the original stories they would go on to tell. I Saw the TV Glow came a few years later, premiering at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and now their latest, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, opens in theaters following a first bow at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in May. Say what you will about Schoenbrun and the films they make, there’s no denying their career is on the upswing.
In Teenage Sex, the filmmaker steps onto their biggest stage yet in more ways than one, from casting top tier actors in the central roles to a story that tackles even bigger, more complicated themes than before (which is saying something, because Schoenbrun isn’t afraid of big themes). The premise, in a script Schoenbrun also wrote, is fantastic and fun: a long-dormant bit of Hollywood IP, the fictional “Camp Miasma” horror movie franchise, is long due for a reboot and up-and-coming filmmaker Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder, fresh off wrapping Hacks) is tapped to helm the new iteration.
In an effort to infuse her adaptation with authenticity, Kris decides to delve into the history of the franchise, watching every film she can get her hands on and eventually showing up at the gate of the remote campground used for filming the original movie, where that film’s star, Billy Presley (the great Gillian Anderson) still lives as a recluse convinced she can’t leave the grounds. It’s the middle of winter, meaning the two don’t have much choice but to hole up in the cabin where Billy lives and get to know each other.
From there, the film twists and turns through an inventive narrative, the kind Schoenbrun does particularly well, including a detour into the original Camp Miasma movie with extended scenes from that film and the monster at the center of the franchise. These scenes are absurd, absolutely riotous and so self-aware that it makes the proceedings that much more fun. Threaded around our learning more about “Camp Miasma” is Kris and Billy discovering more about each other and opening up in unexpected but well-earned ways, and a healthy dose of Schoenbrun’s send-up of the state of independent filmmaking, from too-realistic Zoom calls with agents and studio reps to Kris’s self-righteous monologue on her “philosophy” as a filmmaker.
A critic or film scholar better informed than me could spend a thousand words on all that Schoenbrun unearths in Teenage Sex, from an exploration of feminine sexuality, catharsis and performance anxiety (self imposed or otherwise) to the tropes of creature-feature horror films and an overarching conversation about what reality even is and, at least where movies are concerned, who exactly is watching whom. If you don’t leave Teenage Sex thinking to some degree, “What the hell did I just watch…?,” you might not have been in the same room as the rest of us. It’s a perplexing thing to be both wholly entertained and slightly confused by a film, but if anyone can do it (and make it an enjoyable experience, no less), it’s Jane Schoenbrun.
You know you must be doing something right as a filmmaker when the likes of Eva Victor (Sorry, Baby), Sarah Sherman (currently on Saturday Night Live) and more are willing to show up for roles that amount to little more than cameos in a movie carried by Einbinder and Anderson. And carry it they do. From the references, subtle and overt, to Norma Desmond, to the world building as Kris settles into the private space Billy has made her own over the years, it’s next to impossible to take your eyes off either of them. Einbinder proves she can do more than her anxious, self-involved Ava from Hacks, and Anderson…well, Anderson can do no wrong.
Three feature films in, Schoenbrun is carving out a solid name for themselves as a filmmaker unafraid to take risks and capable of plumbing the very personal to make it universal—not to mention a talent for keeping one very weird finger on the pulse of pop culture.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in theaters.
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