About That ‘Super Bowl Moment’ in the Middle of ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Jane Schoenbrun directed "Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma" as their third feature, following "We're All Going to the World's Fair" and "I Saw the TV Glow," and the film is now playing in theaters.
- Schoenbrun uses daily "cheat sheets" — printouts covering performance notes, thematic and aesthetic rules, sound/music priorities, and how inserts fit each scene's larger goal — prepared with script coordinator Sepi Mashiahof.
- Schoenbrun deliberately pivoted from their previous horror work to make "a goofy sex comedy" with '80s slasher excess, telling IndieWire: "I don't think anyone is wanting me to make a goofy sex comedy after 'TV Glow,' but I have to," framing the choice as resistance to being pigeonholed as a trans filmmaker.
- The "Long December" sequence required 100-plus hours of prep, including walking each location and timing camera moves to the Counting Crows song "second by second," according to Schoenbrun.
- The sequence demanded coordination across SFX, VFX, costume (multiple duplicates at varying levels of destruction), stunt teams managing 20 to 30 extras, and star Jack Haven, who carried a 60-pound camera rig while performing the choreography.
- Schoenbrun compared filming the sequence to "fourth-quarter Super Bowl touchdown energy" — a final-attempt high after months of interdepartmental prep that they said they couldn't watch for a while because it was "too close to the truth."
Why it matters: Schoenbrun, recognized for trans-themed horror like "I Saw the TV Glow," is explicitly resisting industry pigeonholing by pivoting to a goofy sex-comedy-meets-slasher, backed by the same obsessive 100-plus-hour prep cycle — using meticulous craft as the bridge between tonal reinvention and artistic continuity in their filmography.
Ask SkimNews
