The first trailer for director Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is basically an elaborate Friday the 13th Easter egg filled with sex, gore, and Gillian Anderson doing an inexplicable, yet excellent, Benoit Blanc-style southern accent. Needless to say, we’re big fans.
Once described by Schoenbrun as a kind of combination of a Friday the 13th sequel and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma follows a young director (Hannah Einbinder) who is tasked with making a modernized entry in the fictional Camp Miasma slasher series. The director attempts to convince the original film’s final girl (Gillian Anderson) to join the project, only for the two to soon engage in a psychosexual meta journey that both echoes the Misawa films and speaks far louder than them.
Understandably, Schoenbrun is keeping most of the film’s plot details under wraps. But based on what they’ve said (and based on what’s been said about the film since its glowing Cannes debut), Camp Miasma is both a parody of and tribute to ’80s slasher films. It’s also a play on the modern culture of horror remakes, reboots, and reimaginings. Schoenbrun has already demonstrated their ability to tell bitingly relevant stories within the space of their biggest personal pop culture passions, so the prospect of watching them do so again within this arena is incredibly exciting.
One detail worth highlighting in this trailer (besides the gonzo gore and everything Gillian Anderson) is just how much of a Friday the 13th parody that the Camp Misawa series really is. Though technically based on multiple slasher series (the Sleepaway Camp franchise definitely gets a few nods), the number of 1:1 Friday the 13th references in this preview is quite something. The most fascinating of which is undoubtedly the stack of Camp Misawa VHS boxes seen at around the 25-second mark. Some of the fictional Misawa titles (like The Final Chapter, A New Beginning, Little Death Takes Manhattan) are direct pulls from the Friday the 13th franchise. Others (such as Psychic Warriors) nod to separate slasher sequels, while Medieval Miasma: Brandish the Spear is the kind of catch-all, different era throwback tribute that showcases Schoenbrun’s bona fides in this space.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma debuts in theaters on August 7.
