Gillian Anderson has traded The X-Files for something much stranger in a new slasher that is already winning over critics.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma pairs Anderson with Hacks star Hannah Einbinder in the latest film from I Saw the TV Glow director Jane Schoenbrun. After premiering at Cannes earlier this year, the movie arrived in UK and Irish cinemas through MUBI on August 21.
Einbinder plays Kris Williams, a young queer filmmaker hired to bring back the fictional 1980s Camp Miasma slasher franchise. Her obsession with the original films eventually leads her to Billy, played by Anderson, the reclusive former star who has largely disappeared from public life.
Meeting Billy quickly takes the story somewhere much stranger. What begins as preparation for a horror reboot develops into a surreal relationship where filmmaking, desire and reality start bleeding into one another. MUBI describes it as a mix of comedy and horror built around desire, fear and delirium.
Alongside Anderson and Einbinder, the cast includes Amanda Fix, Jack Haven, Arthur Conti, Eva Victor, Zach Cherry, Sarah Sherman, Dylan Baker, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Quintessa Swindell.
Critics have responded especially well to Schoenbrun’s unusual take on the slasher genre. The Guardian gave the film five stars and singled out Anderson’s performance, describing the movie as a strange but committed collision of horror, fantasy and pop culture. The New Yorker also praised the way Schoenbrun plays with the line between filmmaking and reality.
Rolling Stone went even further, calling it a horror fan’s “hot fever dream” and saying it is among the best things audiences will see all year.
For horror fans tired of straightforward slashers, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma looks like a much stranger way to spend a night at the movies.