Quick Review Double Feature: Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma & Tony (2026)

Well here we are with another exciting double feature review. These are two films that I have been looking forward to and I was originally going to have separate reviews for them as I thought I would see Camp Miasma a week later. But showtimes popped up for it a week earlier than anticipated and I thought I would group them together because I’m honestly excited to talk about both films. So I hope you enjoy both reviews here as a nice little double feature and I also hope you check out both films in the theater. They are worth seeing on the big screen.

Jane Schoenbrun has been one of the most fascinating filmmakers to come into the spotlight these past couples years. I have loved their work With We’re All Going to the Worlds Fair and especially I Saw the TV Glow. They have a unique way of exploring themes and even when you’re not completely sure how to interpret things, there’s still this fascination of wanting to explore those sides of things. I also love the way Jane incorporates nostalgia into the stories they tell and it captures that feeling so well. So with their newest film, I was excited to see what story was going to be told here. After watching it, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is an exploration on many things and what it decides to talk about made me love it and it has some of the most exciting sequences I’ve seen from a film this year.

Filmmaker Kris is given the task of rebooting the popular horror franchise Camp Miasma and meets with one of the original actors from the first film. As they get to know each other, they learn about one another’s own desires for each other and what this film series truly means to them.

I think it’s exciting to watch a film where you have no idea where the story is going to be headed and get surprised with the direction that it decides to go in. Much like Jane Schoenbrun’s other work, this is where this film goes in the best way possible. The film is exploring themes of sex, sexuality, queerness, and our relationship to media that I found really fascinating with what it had to say about it. At first, I wasn’t sure how to feel about its meta take on making a film about an old franchise and at points, its probably my least favorite parts of the movie when it’s hamming that part of it, but the film really gets going when we get to the actual camp and see the characters of Kris and Billy connect with each other. It’s a story about love and despite all the craziness is somehow beautiful to see explored in it. It also explores the media that has played a big influence on us and how we consume it despite some of the problematic elements that it might have when we look at it in today’s times. It’s an interesting conversation to have here and I like the film diving into that. I really liked the story here and it was not what I was expecting at all that made me appreciate the direction that it decided to go.

I think the heart of the film lies between the relationship that Kris and Billy have and it’s thanks to fantastic script and performances given to these characters. I love Hannah Einbinder in this role. She does a great job playing the exciting filmmaker who has been heavily influenced by the franchise and I loved what she provided here. Gillian Anderson is also fantastic here. Her role as someone that acted in this movie and then didn’t really do anything after is captured perfectly here and she full of mystery that makes her character intriguing to watch. Together, they mesh so well with each other that it makes it exciting seeing how it all unfolds with them. The rest of the cast has small moments sprinkled in as well that offer great moments like with Jack Haven, Amanda Fix, Zach Cherry, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and so many others in this. But it’s really Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson who do so much in this film and I loved seeing how the relationship between progresses through the film.

I absolutely love the way that this film looks. From the cinematography, set design, costumes, score, the special effects, and so much more. This film shows so much passion from these departments that it makes you fall in love with the craft of it all. Alex G is back doing the score after I Saw the Tv Glow and We’re All Going to the Worlds Fair and it’s another score that has tracks that stick out to me. The special effects go crazy with it being extremely gory and fun with how it decides to incorporate the slasher themes of the film. The way they shoot Camp Miasma looks gorgeous and there’s a blend of beautiful cinematography and then using very creative set design to give it a unique look to it all. I love when a film gets to have different departments show off their talent and that is especially true with this film. So much to love and appreciate about it in that aspect. Not to mention there’s a Counting Crows needle drop that is going to be among my favorite moments of the year.

Watching the films from Jane Schoenbrun over the past couple years has proved how exciting it is to see a filmmaker like this come into the scene. Their exploration in films with media, gender, and sexuality has been fascinating to see explored in the films they have made. This film has so many influences that it wears on its sleeve and it proudly does. Whether it’s the slashers of the 80s like Friday the 13th, Sleepaway Camp, or Nightmare on Elm Street, it’s happy to be influenced by them. Not to mention filmmakers like David Lynch are also influenced largely by the film and it’s able to still say something new that I loved. This is a film that I might not completely understand everything about it yet, but it makes it exciting that I will rewatch it many other times to figure that out and I’m happy to do so.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a film that I found so much appreciation in that makes me excited to see what Jane Schoenbrun has in store in the future. A film that explores our connection to media and what it means to us felt like it was done right here and so much love and craft is at the forefront here that I loved seeing. I’m excited for more Jane Schoenbrun movies for the future.

I’ve talked about many times at this point how much Anthony Bourdain’s work means to me. I never consumed any of Bourdain’s work while he was alive, but he has been a very influential figure in my life when it comes to writing and approaching life. Reading Kitchen Confidential 2 years ago was a factor in making me want to write and it’s one of the reasons why I’m writing this right now. I’ll never forget what this man has done for my life. So hearing that they were making a biopic about him made me extremely cautious. I went into that mindset if this is something that he would have even wanted. But seeing as it would focus on one point of Bourdain’s life in a point before he was even famous and director Matt Johnson helming the project who has proved himself to be quite the filmmaker with Blackberry and this year’s Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie. Something was saying that this could actually work. After watching it, Tony feels like a fresh breath of air when it comes to biopics and I walked out of this film with a big smile on my face with how much I loved it.

Taking place in 1975, a young Anthony Bourdain after failing to get a writing fellowship travels to Provincetown to follow a girl he loves only to find himself diving deep into a restaurant business where the experience working there would change the trajectory of his life forever.

A huge problem I have with biopics is with how a lot of them try to cover so much of the person’s life in one go and we don’t really get to learn about the person in hand. They feel like more of an idea rather than a real person. Some movies can make this work. But most of the time, it doesn’t work. What makes Tony work so well for me is it lets us just jump into a certain point of time and live that moment rather than skipping ahead through important parts of someone’s life. We get to spend a whole summer with Bourdain and I had a good time exploring this side of him like this. He’s not the same guy that we are all familiar with watching No Reservations and they really stick to the quote of what he says in Kitchen Confidential, but it makes it more of an interesting direction to show him like this. Obviously you can argue that a lot that happens in the film didn’t actually happen, but I think the film knows this and it’s just more focused on being able to tell a good story and have characters you care about and I think it manages to succeed in that quite well. Not everything might completely work and I think moments feel like they are included just to make some conflict happen to the characters, but I was still able to feel captivated in the story told here. This is not a film that’s doing anything revolutionary, but the journey that it provides does make for a good time at I felt deeply captivated by.

I think Dominica Sessa manages to capture the spirit of a young Bourdain so well here. As I’ve said, the quote that they go with to describe Bourdain in his younger years at full effect here and Sessa captures the energy perfectly. He has a great arc where you see him as this asshole and then get to see him grow by the end of it. It’s the start of his journey which I think makes it work so great. I think the performance that’s the heart of the movie though is with Antonio Banderas performance. He manages to show a lot in his character in quiet but meaningful performance. You can feel this character has already been through so much in life and the back and forth he has with Sessa works so well here. A lot of the other performances are great with Emilia Jones, Leo Woodall, and Stavros. It’s a movie with many great performances that I appreciated.

I really loved the vibe of the movie and what it was going for when it comes to the style of it all. The cinematography isn’t doing anything too crazy, but it does its job and the film does look nice overall. The film does do a great job with making it feel like we are put into 1975 and there’s great costuming and set design going on when it comes to this. One other thing is the score from Jay McCarrol sounds very nice. It does its job when it needs to and I liked that about it. I like a lot with what’s going on in this film. Not to mention all the food in this film looks bomb as hell.

A lot of discussion has been happening of whether Bourdain would have liked a biopic of himself being made into a film and it was something I wondered about myself as well. But there’s an article released from Bon Appetit from Bourdain’s assistant here that I think gives the perfect response to this. We don’t know how he would feel about it as he was a man that was unpredictable when it comes to this type of stuff. The grief of him not being here is the response of how we think he would feel about it. With me personally, I found myself engulfed by what this film decided to do and even if it’s not exactly how it may have gone, I was still inspired by the end watching it and it felt like it was in the spirit of something he would appreciate. Matt Johnson was the perfect person to make a biopic about Bourdain and he captured that spirit so well here. As I watched Bourdain’s life be changed during that summer, I was reminded of the summer where I read Kitchen Confidential for the first time and had my life changed as well. Just like Bourdain impacted so many peoples lives, I think this film as well is going to have that impact for many people trying to figure it out in life.

Tony is a fantastic biopic in a world where this genre wants to rush through people’s lives and not just let us enjoy a moment in time. This does let us get to live the moment and learn about these character. For that hour and 46 minutes, I was happy to be a part of it. It’s a film that I see myself coming back to every once in a while because of how it made me feel and I like when a film makes me have that feeling. In the words of Bourdain, “enjoy the ride”.