Jane Schoenbrun's New Movie Just Might Heal the American Sexual Psyche

An indie director, Kris, is assigned to revive a fallen ’80s horror franchise about Camp Miasma. The original films were once beloved but later criticized for misogyny and transphobia, prompting a “woke reboot.” Kris, an anxious sexually repressed queer woman in a poly relationship, uses her work to avoid herself and decides to meet Billy, the original “final girl,” for guidance. Billy lives alone in the woods near the camp, smoking weed and eating candy. Their relationship becomes a mutual search for extreme sexual and personal catharsis. The film presents vulnerable, playful sex scenes, including long close-ups focused on staying present and reaching orgasm.

"Miasma stars Hannah Einbinder as Kris, an up-and-coming indie director tasked with reviving the “zombie IP” of Camp Miasma, an '80s horror franchise fashioned lovingly by Schoenbrun in the image of slasher flicks like Sleepaway Camp, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street (among many other delicious references). Once beloved, Miasma fell from grace over the years thanks to a series of shitty sequels plus later generations' reappraisal of the films' blatant misogyny and transphobia."

"Kris, an anxious, sexually repressed queer woman in a poly relationship who admits she uses her work as a distraction from herself, decides that in order to crack the “woke reboot,” she needs to meet Billy (Gillian Anderson), the original film's “final girl.” Billy now lives alone in the woods, in the same remote summer camp where the film was shot, smoking weed and eating lots of candy ( Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond is mentioned more than once)."

"The two women don't quite know what to make of each other - or what, exactly, they're doing with one another - until it becomes clear they're both in need of extreme sexual and personal catharsis. Miasma features some of the most surprising, vulnerable, playful, and deeply moving sex scenes I've ever seen; the most powerful are long close-ups of Einbinder's face as she strives desperately to stop dissociating during sex and learn to stay present enough to orgasm with another person."

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