Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026)

The sharpest scene in Jane Schoenbrun’s new horror-comedy is two women watching a decades-old slasher at the abandoned camp where it was filmed, while one of them can’t stop narrating the camera tricks. That’s Kris, played by Hannah Einbinder, a filmmaker hired to reboot Camp Miasma, a fading franchise about a ghostly killer in a lake whose sequels kept getting worse. Kris grew up on it, knows it line by line, and becomes fixated on casting Billy Presley, the actress who walked away after the original. Gillian Anderson plays Billy, who still lives on those empty campgrounds, and she’s sublime: warm, sly and a little spooky. Then it swerves into pure surrealism, and the last act is intense enough to lose anyone who came for the movie-nerd comedy. It holds an 89 on Metacritic. A 7.5 because it’s daring, weird and genuinely moving, even when it makes you work to keep up. $49.06 says the next old horror movie you watch comes with your own uninvited commentary on every camera trick.

What works: Gillian Anderson is wonderful as the actress who walked away from the franchise, and her movie-nerd chemistry with Hannah Einbinder is a joy.

What doesn’t: The final act swerves into surreal, intense territory so abruptly that viewers who signed up for the comedy may feel stranded on the shore.

Who it’s for: Grown-up horror fans who love talking about how movies are made almost as much as watching them.