Self Discovery Through Slasher Genre

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026) - Schoenbrun A mousy, Sundance winning filmmaker Kris (Hannah Einbinder) has been given a chance to direct a reboot of the Camp Miasma, the 80s slasher franchise, reminiscent of Sleepaway Camp, Friday the 13th, Burning and the like. Miasma franchise is now a butt of a joke to everyone who remembers it being steeped in blatant homophobia, transphobia, gore and titillation of the flesh. Still, it’s a cult classic to diehard horror weirdos.

Kris is keenly aware that her new hot status as an indie darling, plus being a queer filmmaker, landed the job because the studio desperately wants to be seen as woke by hiring them. They understand the fact that the Hollywood ecosystem is a mutual exchange of who's using who.

Under the microscope of a gaggle of Hollywood producers and moneymen, Kris has to get the project off the ground, soon. They are obsessed with the starlet of the first Miasma movie, Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson). They keep watching the VHS copy of the movie over and over again.

In a hilarious pitch zoom meeting with the executives, using their newly earned auteur clout, Kris tries to dictate the project the way they wanted, not in the studio's terms. It doesn’t go well to say the least. While their team tries to smooth over the aftermath, Kris has to convince reclusive Billy to partner up with them to realize the grand vision of the complete and utter transformation of the dead franchise. Little do they know, it is Billy, the Final Girl of the first Miasma movie, who lost her virginity in it, the sultry recluse, ends up helping them to give The Little Death (La Petite Mort - euphemism for orgasm in French), the spear wielding boogie-person of the franchise, the correct backstory and transform them into a sympathetic character.

With two previous somber films, We are All Going to World's Fair and I Saw the TV Glow, Jane Schoenbrun explored desire, fantasy and missed opportunities in an emotionally resonant search for queer identity. In turn, Camp Miasma is a campy, tongue-in-cheek, gory, meta rendition of nostalgia ridden romp. It’s a tale of self-discovery and joyful celebration of queer sex, guided through the great Gillian Anderson, who embodies Billy, Kris’s desire and myth personified, in the Dolly Parton drawl.

With intentionally fake production design, and the great mix of Bob Ross inspired matte paintings, over the top cartoon violence and campy humor, Schoenbrun seems to be finally letting it loose and just having fun- embracing their queerness fully and sexuality all out in the open, matching the main theme of the movie - self-acceptance and showing who they really are. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is great fun.

My Mother My Sister

Sister (2012) - Meier

Simon (Kasey Mottet Klein) is a young boy who lives in a some economically depressed Swiss town right below a ski resort. He makes a living stealing skis and gears and brings them to whomever want to buy it, pretending he is one of the rich tourists with masks and gloves and ski boots. He blends right in. He lives with his older sister Louise (Léa Seydoux) who's not really home much. She's always out with some guys with expensive cars. Their apartment is a mess. It seems it's Simon who provides food on the table and money too. He obviously has mommy issues as he clings on to a svelt English speaking tourist (Gillian Anderson) who is there with her two young sons. He lies to everyone that his parents were long dead from an accident, or owns a big hotel but too busy to be with him.

Simon tells his sister that his ski stealing business is a low risk job. But he gets caught and roughed up from time to time. Since it's Switzerland, there are no law enforcement anywhere it seems. No one really cares since the business around skiing is a seasonal affair- for both who work in the resorts and skiers.

Ursula Meier examines the class disparities as well as interesting family dynamics. The 'big reveal' is pretty devastating. Seydoux is lovely, so as Anderson, but it's Klein who shines in a psychologically complex role. Simon is a tragic figure - lonely, small kid who is left in his own devices to fend for himself as he grapples himself with the idea of 'family'. Great little movie.

Spy in Our Midst

Shadow Dancer (2013) - Marsh

Shifting loyalties regarding family, cause and country are the basis for Shadow Dancer, a sensitive and affecting new political thriller from director James Marsh (Man on Wire, Red Riding: 1980). It boasts a great ensemble cast that includes Clive Owen, Gillian Anderson, Domhnall Gleeson and a relative newcomer, Andrea Riseborough in the central role. 

Soon after witnessing a senseless family tragedy in 1973 in the Occupied Northern Ireland, we are transported to 1998 London, where a sullen Republican member, Collette (Riseborough) reluctantly disposes a bomb in the tube station stairways. Then, she is swiftly scooped up by two ready MI5 agents and delivered to an interrogation room. The whole wordless botched bombing attempt and following apprehension sequences are tense and swift. There, Collette is given an ultimatum by an MI5 officer Mac (Clive Owen): become an informant in her own community and her family or lose everything and go to jail for 25 years. Fearing her young son's fate with the prospect of her being locked up, and after Mac's pledge to become a protector of her and her son from any harm, she accepts being a mole in her radical IRA household.

Back home, with the news of The Good Friday Agreement between the elite Republicans and the British Government looming, Collette's brothers, who belong to a more radical faction of the IRA and are frustrated by nimble politicians, plan an assassination of a high level judge. Collette, being under suspicion from the Republican higher-ups and radicals alike after her supposed unscathed escape from British authorities, is once again pushed into taking part in the terror act. Her absolute last minute phone call to Mac results in the death of her brother's colleague and the failure of their plan. The pressure and suspicions mount. Not wanting to harm anyone by her spying activity, Collette wants out, but Mac's boss Fletcher (Gillian Anderson) won't have any of it. Furthermore, she is willing to give Collette to the dogs when push comes to shove. "There are other informants," she coldly declares to concerned Mac.

Even though it's a classic 'pawn in their game' film, with its deliberate pacing and mood, Shadow Dancer never stays too far from its characters. Handsomely shot in grainy, anamorphic widescreen by Rob Hardy (Boy A, Red Riding: 1974, The Forgiveness of Blood, Inni), the camera often lingers on Collette and Mac's anxiety-ridden faces in close-ups. Working from his own novel of the same name, Tom Bradby's script beautifully sketches out sympathetic characters and their dilemmas without ever being sentimental, all the while pointing out the ugly circumstances brought on by years of systematic humiliation.

Not only is Riseborough fantastic as our morally tangled heroine, always dependable Owen also gives a fine tuned performance as an MI5 officer trying to do right by his subject. Domhnall Gleeson (Harry Potter series) turns gritty as Collette's militant younger brother. Most surprising is Gillian Anderson in a small but meaty role. Her double dealing MI5 commanding officer, Kate Fletcher, is an imposing presence in every frame she's in. Ever since re-relocating to London, Anderson is having a sort of renaissance of her career all across the pond - after her critically acclaimed performances in BBC's Bleak House and Great Expectations, she currently stars in an Irish TV series The Fall and NBC's Hannibal. Anderson's beauty is well utilized by Marsh here as a source of intimidation.

I see this film as a perfect antidote for often faceless, visceral filmmaking that has become the standard for today's action thrillers, which I call the 'Paul Greengrass school of filmmaking.' Shadow Dancer is understated, classy, solid filmmaking with intelligence and soul.