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\n\tFear and desire make an explosive cocktail in Jane Schoenbrun<\/a>\u2019s instant midnight-movie classic Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma<\/a>, a psychedelic tribute to the slasher-horror cycle of the early \u201980s that subversively reclaims the genre from the traditional male gaze. It\u2019s clear from the outset where Schoenbrun is headed, creating a mash-up of the better-known canon \u2014 Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street (in order of appearance) \u2014 but the added twist is the inclusion of 1983\u2019s Sleepaway Camp, which ends with a transgressive twist that still somehow divides LGBTQ+ film critics, despite its obvious transphobia.<\/p>\n \n\tThe title alone does most of the heavy lifting, being the most glorious since Kathy Acker\u2019s 1984 novel Blood and Guts in High School. It also fairly describes the majority of the film\u2019s preoccupations\u00a0\u2014 also including comfort food, which comes in the form of KFC, Jolly Rancher gummies, KitKats and more. In its aesthetic alone, the film will hit the spot for those who fell under the spell of horror movies while far too young to see them in cinemas. Movies like Wes Craven\u2019s brutal 1972 shocker Last House on the Left, with its unforgettable tagline: \u201cTo avoid fainting, keep repeating, \u2018It\u2019s only a movie\u2026 Only a movie\u2026 Only a movie\u2026\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSchoenbrun\u2019s film speaks directly to that nostalgie du sang, and in the genius opening credits it charts the ups and downs of the original Camp Miasma franchise. The first film \u2014 in which teen camp counsellors were picked off by Little Death, a psychopath with an air-vent for a head \u2014 was a hit, much like the first Friday the 13th movie. After that, its young star, Billy Presley, walked away and became a recluse (parallels are drawn with Shelley Duvall). The series continued, with diminishing returns artistically \u2014 look out for ludicrous medieval, Christmas and space-set variations \u2014 but, of course, plenty of opportunity for merch, as witnessed by T-shirts, figurines and arcade games.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter the credits roll, the film finds film director Kris (Hannah Einbinder<\/a>), a non-binary, polyamorous Sundance wunderkind, being tasked with rebooting the Camp Miasma franchise. Kris has political reasons for doing this, since they know they are being exploited by the studio to give the project a veneer of PC credibility. But Kris is also a classic Schoenbrun heroine, an outsider whose lifeline is pop culture, and despite her apparent militance, she is not entirely at home in her sexual identity, as evidenced by her clearly unhappy relationship with a woman she shares with a bisexual man named Thor.<\/p>\n \n\tKris wants Billy (Gillian Anderson<\/a>) to make a cameo appearance in her film and so makes an appointment to visit her. She finds Billy living in the strangest place \u2014 an eerily deserted former campsite called Camp Tivoli that served as the actual location for the first Camp Miasma film. It even has its own cinema, which is where Billy makes her dramatic first appearance. \u201cI saw you and I wanted to scare you,\u201d she explains. With her Southern drawl and vampiric need for attention, Billy knocks Kris sideways, teasing her by pretending to be \u201cbugs-under-the-skin crazy-lady\u201d who thinks Little Death is real.<\/p>\n