TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA: A Blood-Soaked Love Letter to Slasher Sequels

[L-R]: Hannah Einbinder as KRIS, Gillian Anderson as BILLY in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA.

There are few films as widely derided as the late-stage slasher franchise sequel. Highly enumerated flicks like A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER, HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS, and FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE rarely earn critical praise or cultural prestige. Attempts to revitalize and rejigger horror franchises with reboots or prestige TV takes have been just as dismissed. Such proliferation of gore and gristle has brought out a cottage industry of vultures, too: slasher parody and satire series with their own diminishing returns. For instance, in 2026, we saw the worst SCREAM and SCARY MOVIE installments to date, the franchises' seventh and sixth outings, respectively.

Nonetheless, slasher movies remain incredibly popular with audiences. Fans flock to theaters to see the newest, grimiest escapades of their favorite final girls, or flood convention halls in handmade costumes to meet their favorite slasher icon. Box office receipts for the most dilated horror IP can still be tremendous: HALLOWEEN ENDS, the 13th film in the Michael Myers oeuvre, made over $100 million worldwide in 2022.

“Why does this keep happening?!” you may be crying. “What keeps people coming back to the slaughterhouse?”

[L-R]: Hannah Einbinder as KRIS, Gillian Anderson as BILLY in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA.

TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA has an answer for you.

Jane Schoenbrun’s fourth feature stars Hannah Einbinder as Kris Williams, a 29-year-old queer filmmaker hired to reinvigorate dormant slasher franchise CAMP MIASMA with a fresh installment. Kris, played by Einbinder as a dorky – but passionate! – intellectual, is obsessed with the idea of recruiting original CAMP MIASMA final girl Billy Presley to her project. Billy, played by Gillian Anderson with blonde aplomb and a delightful Southern drawl, retired from the public eye soon after her slasher was released. She eventually moved to live at the camp where the film was shot, which is where Kris finds her at the outset of the film. As they talk through Kris’ vision for her reboot, the two bond over their complicated feelings about the first CAMP MIASMA. Meanwhile, Little Death, the radiator-headed mascot of the franchise, may be lurking at the bottom of the lake…

TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH is a film with an A-side and B-side. Speaking to the latter, it’s technically a slasher with all the needed accoutrement: geysers of blood, slaughtered teens, a soon-to-be iconic villain. However, if its ironic title didn’t tip you off, this is a film far more interested in the idea of slashers than the conceit of being one itself. The movie is both interrogation and celebration of the genre, which becomes clear during the lengthy film-within-a-film section of the flick, when Kris and Billy watch the original CAMP MIASMA together.

Jack Haven as LITTLE DEATH in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA.

CAMP MIASMA is riffing on the FRIDAY THE 13TH series and SLEEPAWAY CAMP, a cult slasher film with a troubled reputation for its depiction of transexual identity. In the fictive CAMP MIASMA franchise, Little Death, played by a sublimely melancholy Jack Haven, was once a purportedly genderfluid child who was drowned in the camp lake by camp bullies. Little Death later returns to exact bloody revenge on a new group of bigoted teens, using a long spear as his weapon of choice. When Kris and Billy watch the film, Schoenbrun shifts the perspective of the killing spree into Little Death’s point of view, orienting the camera through his eyes and actions in a bravura sequence set to “A Long December” by Counting Crows. The scene is a perfect evocation of Schoenbrun’s cinematic alchemy: hilariously stylized in its kills, while evoking a terrible sadness through the music and Haven’s eyes. As an audience member, it is nigh-impossible not to sympathize with Little Death, which makes for a meta examination of who else has been historically portrayed as a slasher villain – and why. Schoenbrun, who is transfeminine and nonbinary, cast several of Little Death’s victims as real-life nonbinary icons, including actor-filmmaker Eva Victor and actor Quintessa Swindell. The force of queer creatives within the Counting Crows sequence, especially, makes clear the satirical tone the film takes with the transphobic history of the slasher, despite Schoenbrun’s avid love for the genre at large.

The scene ends when the print Kris and Billy are watching freezes, caught on a shot of Billy’s younger self looking up at Little Death in the moment just before her impalement. The shot is the symbol of the film’s A-side: the romance between Kris and Billy. The movie is a love story wrapped in a slasher package. Einbinder and Anderson have incredible chemistry, deftly deployed through their characters’ sensual, sweet, – and, at times, quite silly – courtship of one another. Kris and Billy discover a meeting point in their sexual relationship to the final girl in CAMP MIASMA. For Kris, she has always found sex uncomfortable and disassociative, finding herself fantasizing about becoming the girl in CAMP MIASMA. Billy, meanwhile, was pressured into losing her virginity in that scene. When the two do have sex, they reclaim the moment in the film together, achieving a new level of catharsis through sharing it. 

Though enjoyable on its own merits, the film’s romance is also slasher commentary. The deep connection Kris and Billy find in CAMP MIASMA is emblematic of the relationship many slasher fans have forged with the genre. There is a give-and-take to the slasher’s “flesh and fluids,” hallmarks Billy notes in the film, for the audience. For the enthusiast, watching schlocky kills in the nth episode of a franchise is a lot like having sex. There’s a promised exchange – audience attention for gleeful carnage – that results in pleasure. Slashers may be junky cinematic confections, but for those who love them, share them, and buoy them to the epic length of a long-running franchise, there may as well be nothing better. TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH demonstrates self-awareness about this by having Kris and Billy consummate their relationship on a bed of candy, packets of which are seen throughout  the film.

Hannah Einbinder as KRIS in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA.

There is more meat on the bones of TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH than mere candy, however. For one, Kris and Billy also enjoy a fried chicken dinner. But in all seriousness, Schoenbrun’s virtuosic film is worthy of a hefty list of accolades. The gorgeous, kitschy set design. The meticulously detailed opening credits sequence. The fantastic, hilarious supporting turns from Sarah Sherman, Dylan Baker, and Jess McLeod as oblivious Hollywood execs. The transcendent synth-heavy score by Alex G, supplemented by a killer alt-rock soundtrack. The beautiful, surreal imagery of everything to do with Little Death. Einbinder and Anderson, again and again. There is so much in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH to love.

Ultimately, once all the bloodshed is said and done, the film is not really a horror movie at all. The (spear)point of the picture is to celebrate what makes people love slashers so much, and uses the relationship between Kris and Billy as a microcosm for the experiences of so many fans. What makes it such a roaring success is that it isn’t just for them. Despite its aesthetic eccentricities and macabre framing, TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA is more of an offbeat romantic comedy than anything else. It’s as much for people who enjoy flicks like JUNO, DINNER IN AMERICA and BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER as it is for voracious slasher enthusiasts.

I count myself in both categories. Like all my favorite slashers and all my cherished rom-coms, I’m certain this is one I’ll be returning to many times in the years to come, hopefully with new acolytes in tow. I hear they only get better the more you share them.

Release info: In theaters nationwide on August 21, 2026.

Final score: 5/5

Pruett Norris is a journalist and film critic based in Asheville, NC. He is a member of the North Carolina Film Critics Association and has written for 828newsNOW, Cultural Voice of North Carolina, 1 of My Stories and Pictures & Projections. He loves Richard Linklater, vampire movies and the Oscars.