If you are unfamiliar with Jane Schoenbrun, you are missing out on some of the best films of the past decade. They have been responsible for some of the boldest and most audacious horror films of the past several years, including 2021’s We Are All Going to the World's Fair and 2024’s I Saw the TV Glow. Now, Schoenbrun has a new film coming out, in the form of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. The film is the director’s adoring and subversive riff on slashers, sequels, and remakes, most specifically as it pertains to the Friday the 13th franchise, whose aesthetics Schoenbrun’s film channels in thoughtful and insightful ways.
As a result, much of the press surrounding Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma has seen Schoenbrun and the cast (such as Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson) engaging overtly with the legacy of these long-running horror franchises. In a recent video interview, Schoenbrun was asked about their favorite final girls throughout horror history, and while they paid a great deal of love and respect to iconic classics like Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode from Halloween, Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy Thompson from A Nightmare on Elm Street, and even Jessica Harper’s Suzy Bannion from Suspiria (game recognize game), the filmmaker ultimately chose Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott from Scream as their number-one final girl. However, they made sure to specify that they were doing so while also discounting the most recent entry in the franchise, Scream 7.
For the uninitiated, the original Scream, released in 1996, is a bona fide staple of the horror and slasher genres at this point. Written by Kevin Williamson but directed by genre mastermind Wes Craven, the film blended then-new post-referential commentary with classical craftsmanship to result in something that has persevered through the decades. Craven would go on to helm the first three sequels, all the way up to 2011’s massively underrated Scream 4, before sadly passing away a few years later.
Since then, the franchise has continued on in true slasher franchise fashion, with three new films made in recent years, including 2022’s Scream (it’s Scream 5, but it’s just called Scream; I don’t know why; I don’t make the rules, etc.), 2023’s Scream VI, and this year’s Scream 7. While the first two of these three latter-era films were received generally quite well by critics and audiences alike, the latter was decidedly not. Not only did Scream 7 net the franchise some of its very worst reviews to date, but it also almost immediately became the butt of the joke amongst even the most die-hard of franchise fans, due to its incredibly sloppy construction and poor writing.
So, in many ways, the fact that Schoenbrun felt the need to voice this opinion right in the middle of picking Sidney Prescott as her number-one final girl of all time is a telling indictment of just how much this most recent sequel has soiled the reputation of this storied franchise. Upon picking Sidney as the definitive winner, the filmmaker said, “Scream 7 we won’t talk about, but… the rest of them? Love you Neve.”
To see and hear more of Jane Schoenbrun’s distinct takes on the horror genre, make sure to check out Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma when it releases later this summer.
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