Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma - Movie Review

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Good evening. This is the Oscar expert here with brother Row at the Can Film Festival. It's time to review Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Myasma directed by Jane Chamber. Jane Chamron, one of the best filmmakers, most exciting filmmakers working today. If you have not caught up on their work, we're all going to the World's Fair was a very exciting debut at Sundance made in a shoestring budget that I found to be really captivating and it has only grown on me since revisiting it. And I saw the TV Globe was one of our favorite. It was top two for both of us for its year. And they're back with a new film. This is about a queer indie director tasked with rebooting a dead slasher franchise that she has a personal connection with. And she meets with the reclusive actress who played the final girl from the original film to explore a potential part in this new film. And here Jane Shamron continues themes about how the movies and media live inside of us. The way that they shape us, our world, the way that they offer windows outside of ourselves, maybe inside of ourselves, how destructive they can be, how liberating they can be. And I feel like there's no other director who's exploring these ideas in this way. And these themes feel so personal to Jane Shamron. And that's why their films are so exciting.

[00:01:10]>> Yeah. I think part of the reason why there's no other filmmakers exploring in just this way is because Jane Shambrun is a non-binary filmmaker and brings this personal lens to all of their movies. There's something really valuable about making room for artists, you know, that haven't like traditionally told stories. Kashan's films are just utterly fascinating. We might get a exploration of similar themes in their work, but we don't know what kind of film we're going to get because this is quite different in tonally from TV Glow and I think refreshingly so. It's extremely silly and playful and irreverent and funny.

[00:01:47]Whereas TV Glow was quite depressing and dark and, you know, probably more easily marketable to as a sort of horror film because of the tone. But this one's like kind of offthe-walls and almost euphoric at times. It's like the audience gets to feel the thrill of a filmmaker coming into their own voice and discovering a way to play with the medium. And it feels like we're sharing in that joy.

[00:02:09]But make no mistake, despite how silly this film is, the ideas are very rich and fascinating. And I've been turning this film over quite a bit since I've seen it. It's also very dense and academic at times and then self-reflective about all of the things that it is trying to do. And it's really impressive to me how Shawn Brin can be so self-reflective and go like really close to the brink of like this almost feels too academic but then bring it back and then make it visceral again and make it personal and make it emotional.

[00:02:38]I think this film kind of has it all. In many ways this is a deconstruction of the horror genre. But I assume it comes from the place of Shambra asking themselves why do I love watching these kinds of movies? What is it about them that entices me that tingles me? And it's exploring this tension of loving these films, but also acknowledging that a lot of what's on screen is hostile to this filmmaker's identity. Slasher films and films in general have traditionally upheld patriarchy and outdated ideas about sexuality, especially when it comes to objectifying women. And this is something with that Shawn Burn wrestles with directly in this film. Like, how can I love these movies and be so drawn to them? And at the same time, you know, my head is saying that this is repulsive and I'm supposed to uh hate this.

[00:03:21]Really, I think the core of the film, even though I feel like I could I could say that sentence and have like five different things that follow it, but one of the cores of the film perhaps is this tension between intellectualizing and feeling it on a gut level because our protagonist in the film, a director, is very intellectual. The studio wants her to take this franchise into an elevated horror direction. And then Jillian Anderson's character, who represents kind of the older perspective on these movies, has this view of like you can't really truly appreciate these films without giving into what is just instinctively pleasurable about them.

[00:03:58]The ideas presented in this film and what Shawn Brin wants us to buy into are wacky and insane on paper, but I totally bought into it and I don't know how that even happened. The movie almost feels like it's free associating at some point, which feels like I would get lost in that, but I didn't. And I was like, "No, that's that's connecting. That [ __ ] is related. You're like, you're on to something." I guess what I'm trying to say is that this film brought me to unexpected places. And I was just so thrilled with really the adventure that it took me on. Kind of like with TV Glow, at a certain point you feel like the edible starts to hit and and the movie becomes almost a little bit of like a hazy psychedelia where you're just entrenched in the ideas. I mean, maybe some people will feel like the movie loses them here. I do think at the end >> as if the whole movie wasn't kind of abstract to begin with, though.

[00:04:47]>> Yeah. But I think that it will it will bring you back because it actually again it's it's surprisingly fun, too.

[00:04:53]>> I like the movie's commitment to not being grounded in reality. I agree with like what you said about like an edible hitting like I knew what you meant because I felt that in the film like a couple times. You know, we're going we're entering the psyche now and it's it's not going to make sense except for on like a visceral level and I just love that. I I love that transition.

[00:05:10]>> That's what movies are for.

[00:05:12]>> It doesn't make sense if you describe it, but it makes you can feel it.

[00:05:16]>> No, no, no. But there's some But sometime Yeah, that's true. But sometimes films lose me when they do that because they haven't told me what lens I'm supposed to be like using to view this the abstract part. This film actually does have like a decent amount of exposition to get you to understand intellectually what's happening and the ideas that are there and then also feel it. Yeah, it's hard to talk about this film without just going on a tangent about its ideas and I don't want to do that cuz I want people in watching this to discover it. But I would also love to put out an analysis of this at a later date and people will have different views about what what is important to them in this film. There's many different threads to latch on to and for that reason I really can't wait to see it again. I feel like this is the kind of film that can transform every time you see it. As much as my expectations were high because of their previous films, this didn't disappoint me, which is probably the highest compliment I can give it. Jillian Anderson is really fun here, especially with her accent and the way she's doing a Norma Desmondesque sort of performance. You know, the character is kind of hard to place, but I just thought that was like a fun role, you know, very delightful. And Hannah Iron Bender was also a total joy here.

[00:06:24]My favorite scene of hers is one on a Zoom call that got the audience really laughing.

[00:06:28]>> I loved Hannah Bender in this. I really believed her as just this kind of dorky heady person with all these insecurities. It felt like a perfect performance to me.

[00:06:38]>> Yeah, the production design is really fun here. Like there are some painted backdrops. Definitely doesn't feel the need to uh be real. And that is a lot of fun for the production design department. Yeah, the film has some very expansive visuals, but it does so in kind of a self-aware, lowbudgety way.

[00:06:55]There are some pieces of this film that I have a little bit of a hard time connecting and wrapping my head around, but I would say like 85% of it feels very satisfying, cohesive, and then there's like a little piece that feels like maybe that free association was like a little too much of a leap for me.

[00:07:13]But that almost feels like part for the course for a film this ambitious. And so I don't want to hold its ambitions against it. I'd give this uh nine out of 10 and say it's definitely in my top 10 this year. I feel similarly about TV Glow I did with this one where I'm going to give it a nine for now and then we're going to have to rewatch it because TV Glow did go up to a 10 for me. And I kind of think this is like about as good. That's kind of what I think. I just need to watch it again. That's really it. I'm I'm I'm pretty obsessed with it. And uh make sure you see this in theaters if you can because this film is not that commercial, guys. But it's still really fun. It's the kind of project that we all need to get together and support as as an independent filmloving ecosystem. You know, art like this just feels so valuable. Like it feels like there shouldn't even be a price on this sort of product. But you know, it's the world we live in and trying to do our part to make sure these films keep getting made together. We can make this commercial. So >> we cannot. No, probably can't do that much. Thank you for watching. Thank you for subscribing.

[00:08:14]>> What was the name of your camp?