‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ Eyes $1.9M Weekend in Wide Expansion — Post Your Review!

Jane Schoenbrun, coming off “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” and “I Saw the TV Glow,” has “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” expanding much wider this weekend. Over 1,000 theaters, and judging by its Friday tally, the film will probably have a $1.9M weekend. That’s a $1,755 per-theater average — it’s okay, but not strong.

We recently learned that Schoenbrun had to fight to bring “Camp Miasma” to the big screen. A24 — which produced “I Saw the TV Glow” — passed on the project, which led to MUBI eventually coming aboard as the financier, and with a relatively modest $10M budget. This might be another Schoenbrun film that won’t make its money back.

Schoenbrun had previously expressed frustration with the “post-woke, post-Biden” Hollywood climate, where few trans artists are being given decent budgets, calling it a serious gap in the industry. That said, what Schoenbrun failed to note is that, despite the acclaim, “I Saw the TV Glow,” released in 2024 and financed by A24, only grossed $5M worldwide against a $10M budget. That’s why A24 passed on ‘Camp Miasma.’

Still, the reviews have been great for ‘Camp Miasma,’ with the film earning a glowing 88 on Metacritic. In the film, Schoenbrun is leaning into something slightly more accessible, certainly bloodier, and more sexual. It is, as always, a Lynch riff, and one that demands a second viewing. The film is definitely bold and inventive — a queer meta-slasher that blends horror, romance, and film-industry satire into a surreal exploration of desire and identity.

The story follows Kris (Hannah Einbinder), a young filmmaker hired to reboot a long-running slasher franchise, whose work leads her to the original “final girl” of the series — played by Gillian Anderson. Their relationship becomes both a creative collaboration and an emotional obsession, while the abandoned camp serves as a space where reality and fiction begin to blur.

At its core, this is a story about the difficulty of achieving intimacy and pleasure, with Kris’ psychological spiral reflecting a deeper struggle with sexual anxiety. It’s essentially an autobiographical dissection of Schoenbrun’s own struggles.

I liked its dreamlike, artificial environments, which feel both stylized and disorienting. However, I had significant frustrations with the execution. The film can feel overly theoretical and self-conscious, with its ideas sometimes overwhelming its narrative momentum. The pacing drifts, and certain metaphorical elements feel repetitive or overly explicit. I’ll give it another shot eventually.

That said, I seem to be in the minority here. Now that ‘Camp Miasma’ has reached a wider rollout, what did our readers think of the film? Does it deserve all the raves it’s been getting? I’ll give it a rewatch soon, but for now, I’m in the mixed camp.