Tags: blog, film, horror, essential, 2026
Author: KickingK
Date: Saturday October 03rd, 2026
I sent a message through the internet but it rejected
“I know writers who use subtext, and they're all cowards.” Garth Merenghi
What kind of horror movie is Camp Miasma? It's extremely mercurial for most of it's run-time, never fully committing to one particular flavour of horror. Or at least making you aware of where it's going.
The very meta-ness of it's conceit (Hannah Einbinder's Writer-Director Kris is reviving the 'Camp Miasma' horror franchise and seeks out the original film's Final Girl, Gillian Anderson's Billy, for inspiration) evokes obvious comparisons to Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which the script very sniffily laughs out the room, practically scolding it's audience for thinking it's going to be that obvious.
So is it a straight slasher? It has brutal, over the top stabbings and swimming pools worth of blood. But doesn't take the time to really set the scene. They're schlocky, not shocking.
Is it a horror-comedy? It's certainly funny, but it doesn't use the tension of it's horror to build up the jokes. The jokes are weird, not gut-busting.
Is it a surrealist, tonal piece that builds uncertainty and unease? Kind of. But then you have a whole murder spree that's started by someone getting a pole shoved up them and then beaten against a tree until they explode. It's difficult to let it under your skin when the all the skin in the film is flying everywhere.
Is it a psychological horror following a descent into madness? Well Gillian Anderson is certainly vamping it up. But Hannah Einbinder is spending just a bit too long looking at her with her big goopy eyes and...there we go...
Gradually, the film builds and builds towards the kind of horror it actually wants to be: the horny kind. So horny. A single moment of subtext in the 'source' material, a moment of queer enlightenment, is re-worked only with the text front and centre, loud and proud.
That build up takes everything I've mentioned so far: the blood, the gore, the comedy, the weirdness, the intelligence and the sex and rolls it into an ever tightening climax that is one for the absolute ages. Einbinder deserves an oscar for that one scene alone. After which, the resultant release is just joyful.
This a film about seeing a sliver of yourself, tucked away, hidden in film, and then re-working it so you see your entire self, large as life. No subtext needed.
