Writer-director Jane Schoenbrun combines splatter, satire and taboo subject matter.
Hannah Einbinder - Kris Williams
Gillian Anderson - Billy Presley
Jack Haven - Little Death
Arthur Conti - Alex
Eva Victor - DJ Ella Giastic
Zach Cherry - Will
Sarah Sherman - Kris's agent
Patrick Fischler - Rudolph
Dylan Baker - Jeffrey
Summary
To revive slasher franchise Camp Miasma, 29-year-old long-term fan and queer filmmaker Kris Williams is hired to reboot series, lovingly based on Friday the 13th.
She travels to Camp Tivoli, where series was filmed and also the adopted home of original film's final girl Billy Presley.
As a very physical relationship develops, Kris enters a dangerous world of hypnotic fear, with spear-wielding villain Little Death at the centre of sexual desire.
Flesh and fluid
While previous projects We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021) and I Saw the TV Glow (2024) weren't exactly shabby - this was a huge step up.
Against an excellent cover of R.E.M.'s Nightswimming by Okay Kaya, title sequence is a kick-ass compilation of promotional material, merchandise and scathing reviews of later instalments. But Camp Miasma arcade really made me smile, as gameplay parodies fighting Jason (here obviously Little Death), in the infamous NES version of Friday the 13th (1989).
Film has the vibe of Censor (2021), and flesh wall towards the end pays homage to Videodrome (1983).
In French, la petite mort literally translates to "the little death", an idiom referring to the brief loss of consciousness and trance-like state experienced immediately after an orgasm.
Plenty of gore is spilled, with blood geysers symbolising ejaculation.
Billy explains that when she was sexually assaulted for a scene in Camp Miasma, she learned to orgasm by virtue of Little Death watching her having sex.
After Little Death (who wears an air vent for a helmet/mask btw), goes on a killing spree, he 'skewers' Kris and Billy simultaneously. The following morning, they wake up, still covered in blood, and return to the gas station where the original film began.
In a split-diopter shot, Kris and Billy smile and walk off together holding hands.
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