Reviews: TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA and THE END OF OAK STREET

 by Rob DiCristno

A pair of weird ones for ya!

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Dir. Jane Schoenbrun)

“This part is transphobic,” explains Kris (Hannah Einbinder) as a scene unfolds in Camp Miasma, the ‘80s slasher film she’s watching with its final girl, actress Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson). “Shut up,” Billy responds. Billy isn’t being culturally insensitive, or anything; she’s just trying to get Kris out of her head. You see, the Sundance darling indie filmmaker is about to begin work on a Camp Miasma reboot, and Billy’s worried that Kris might not have a real appreciation for the series’ “flesh-and-fluids” appeal. Kris typically takes a reflexive, intellectual approach to her art — critics described her breakout film as “Psycho told from the perspective of the shower curtain” — but however much internet scholarship insists on examining the cinema of yesteryear through a modern lens, there’s something about Camp Miasma that resists post-#MeToo classification. For Billy — who’s spent years in reclusion at the very disused summer camp where the first Camp Miasma was shot — its true legacy lies in our baser instincts: the primal, guttural urges that often lack academic definition.

The third entry in what must now be dubbed a Horny Media Studies course from writer/director Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, I Saw the TV Glow), Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a sharp examination of our emotional, physical, and psychosexual relationship with the art we devour. Kris’ childhood obsession with the schlocky slasher — which spawned sequels, trading cards, action figures, and other ephemera lovingly displayed during the film’s opening credits — has made her the studio’s obvious choice to resurrect their zombie IP. But what begins as a meeting to secure a pity cameo for the aging Billy becomes an orgiastic interrogation of Kris’ repression as the boundaries between worlds — between performer and audience, film and reality — begin to blur. True to their Millennial roots and bold, unabashed sincerity, Schoenbrun has made another post-modern film that trades easy trope-spotting for messy emotional catharsis. This isn’t about how the movies are made; it’s about what the movies have made of us.

Easily Jane Schoenbrun’s most confident and accomplished work to date, Teenage Sex and Death is anchored by standout lead performances from Hacks’ Hannah Einbinder and genre legend Gillian Anderson. While Einbinder’s fearless turn will make her a formidable challenger to Inde Navarrette for 2026’s Scream Queen of the Year Award, it’s Anderson as the fabulous, Norma Desmond-esque Billy — “esque” doesn’t really cover it; Schoenbrun styles her as Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard and title-drops Wilder’s Hollywood noir masterpiece throughout — who helps Kris unpeel the deepest layers of this auto-referential onion. Schoenbrun brings their usual visual flair, populating a VHS world with candy-colored matte paintings and hyper-stylized, animated blood splatter, creating a paradoxical unreality that is as reassuring as it is unsettling. “If it gets too real, you can always turn it off,” reads Camp Miasma’s poster. Maybe that’s true. But if we’re already so far in, Schoenbrun seems to be asking, why in the hell would we ever want to leave?

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is in select U.S. theaters now.

The End of Oak Street (Dir. David Robert Mitchell)

Suburban Detroit, 1982: A solar flare has opened a rift in the space-time continuum and transported part of a peaceful neighborhood back to the Mesozoic Era (era). With their marriage already on the brink of collapse, Denise and Greg Platt (Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor) must now protect their teenage children (Maisy Stella and Christian Covery as Audrey and Brian) from terrifying prehistoric creatures and find a way back to their own time. Sounds great, right? “What if you woke up and there were dinosaurs in your backyard?” Sounds like a Joe Dante joint, or any one of a hundred other VHS classics from Amblin Entertainment! And it should. The fourth feature from writer/director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows, Under the Silver Lake), The End of Oak Street forgoes any convoluted explanations for its lofty premise — I can only hope that the One Night Only folks are taking notes opening weekend — and builds an exhilarating adventure out of the same family drama that made forebears like Gremlins and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial so timeless.

Or at least, that’s what I thought the film was doing at first. That’s what it seemed like it wanted to do. That’s what — according to most of the effusive early reaction blurbs from my esteemed colleagues in the critical community — it wants us all to think it is. And while there are certainly parts of the new Bad Robot actioner that feel like an earnest throwback to the Spielbergian cinema of the past, The End of Oak Street is such an awkward tonal disaster that it’s impossible to be entirely sure it isn’t actually taking the piss out of its audience. To wit: The first act of Mitchell’s screenplay is a milquetoast blend of expositional cliches and “aw-shucks” dialogue that set up a family dynamic straight out of the 1950s. Coupled with Michael Gioulakis’ ‘70s-style photography — widescreen composition, slow zooms, and the most comical overuse of split-diopters I’ve ever seen — we get the early impression that Oak Street has its tongue firmly in its cheek. Very well! I’m totally on board for a goofy send-up of B horror and sci-fi movies. I see what you’re doing, Mr. Mitchell!

But as Oak Street wore on, I began to wonder just how in on the joke it actually was. The characters’ actions are idiotic, sure, but that comes with the genre territory. Hathaway and McGregor play the histrionics straight — McGregor shouting “I read your book, Denise!” made me laugh harder than anything in Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie — but again, that’s how parody works. There are even bits of inappropriate humor, like when the Platts come across a pair of long-neck dinos fucking against their neighbor’s house. But then, hang on: A character is violently mauled to death in the next scene. That widescreen composition is creating moments of (supposedly) genuine tension. Wait. Why don’t the dinosaurs’ footsteps tremor like in Jurassic Park? Because this is a parody! But is it? Why is its climax so earnest? Is all the mean-spirited brutality part of the parody? Is the off-putting tone intentional? I don’t think so, and by the end of Oak Street, I still wasn’t sure if Mitchell was mocking Amblin or homaging it. Don’t let anyone fool you: I don’t think he knows, either.

The End of Oak Street hits U.S. theaters on Friday, August 14th.