Jane Schoenbrun Reboots 1980 Slasher Franchise in 112-Minute Meta-Horror

3 articles · Updated · The Boston Globe · Aug 13

Jane Schoenbrun’s “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” arrives as a self-aware slasher reboot centered on Kris, a young director trying to revive a 1980 camp-horror property.
Four days of scenes between Kris and retired original star Billy Presley drive the film, turning the reboot pitch into a story about identity, desire and pop-culture obsession.
Little Death — a spear-wielding killer played by Jack Haven — anchors the movie’s horror side, with geysers of blood and a standout one-take campsite massacre staged as an homage to 1980s slashers.
Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder ground the film’s wilder turns, while Schoenbrun folds in critiques of older genre transphobia and flips slasher morality toward sex-positivity.
The 112-minute film, now in theaters, extends Schoenbrun’s run of identity-focused genre work after “I Saw the TV Glow,” this time through a more accessible horror framework.