Miasma
It IS hilarious. It IS a grim and demonically merciless pisstake of every slasher movie ever made. It IS a social commentary on both woke and anti-woke/traditionalist culture, and it DOES take shots at both sides with impunity. I found myself laughing out loud during various segments and then being taught a sharp lesson in others. Nevertheless, I guess as a film it’s a kaleidoscope of beautiful - and terrible chaos.
I’ve just returned from a really small showing of ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ at The Palace Cinema in Broadstairs. Nicknamed (by the folks I know, at least) The Flea Pit, our nearest homegrown independent cinema is a bit of an oddity. The last time I went there was for a combined birthday party/stage play screening for an actor friend who had hired out the venue for the celebration. It was a terrific event…and it reminded me that I hadn’t actually seen a film there in a long, long time. I might be slightly exaggerating, as I’m fairly sure I saw at least one showing of the hilarious ‘Trouble With Jessica’ a year or two back - but I certainly didn’t remember any other visits.
This time, we squeezed into two balcony seats to see a film I’ve been eagerly awaiting…simply because I knew that this particular movie would have something to say, and I desperately wanted to see exactly what that was.
Now, I’m not sure how popular this film is going to turn out to be - as I type this, it is yet to appear at our local chain cinema (Vue Thanet), but I’ll tell you this: it’s one to experience…and not simply if you like horror. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is certainly horrific in plenty of places, but I strongly believe that the real horror, deceptively well-played out among both the subtle and the not-at-all-subtle scenes, is the horror of discovering your sexual identity and the petrifying self-awareness this brings for so many who don’t feel entirely comfortable in their own lives/personas/selves/skin.
There are one or two absolutely incredible scenes in Sex and Death, mostly based around conversations in the core relationship dynamic between hugely conflicted young filmmaker Kris Williams and Billy Presley, the reclusive former actress she visits to (initially) arrange a cameo in the upcoming ‘Camp Miasma’ franchise.
The film contains so many scenes of (you guessed it) gratuitous sex and violence, many of them played out for intensity in the sort of lingering, repetitive shots that are always annoying but that work so uncomfortably well that they get inside your head and refuse to budge. Far more interesting for me was the huge sense of shame and emotional conflict experienced by the two central characters, both uncovering moments of huge import and mental trauma from two completely different sources: one from an event experienced firsthand during the ‘construction of the movie’ and the other from a child viewing the created scene in a culmination which is both powerful and affecting. A lot of this carries even more power when played for laughs in a comedic undertone, which swings wildly between awkwardly funny scenes and deliberately dark and shocking moments of genuinely unsettling terror.
Highly recommended - if only because it’s an extremely artistic cinematic experience that you won’t forget in a hurry…if ever.
