On Location peels back the curtain on some of your favorite films, television shows, and more. This time, we take a look at Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.
The new movie Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a new spin on the summer camp slasher made classic by such films as Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp. Set in the present, the movie tells the story of Kris (Hannah Einbinder), a young filmmaker who sets out to reboot an old slasher flick, Camp Miasma, haunted by a mysterious, helmeted killer named Little Death. While Kris has been asked to work on this remake, she has her own history with the Camp Miasma franchise, namely a long-time fascination with the reclusive actress Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson). Billy played the final girl in the original installment.
The plot is set in motion when the two get in touch, and Billy invites Kris to visit her at her isolated Pacific Northwest abode. Billy isn’t just living in the woods either—she’s made her home on the summer camp where the first film was shot. The rustic setting, with looming peaks, snow-coated pines, and an all-around sense of abandoned creepiness, brings to mind David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and numerous slasher films that undoubtedly inspired this work.
Given the complex world-building involved in developing lore and physical memorabilia for the Camp Miasma franchise as well as the matte-glass painting approach, production designers Brandon Tonner-Connolly and Matt Hyland joined forces. “Sometimes when you take over a place, people can get a little cagey, especially if they hear the terms ‘horror movie’ or ‘slasher.’ But truth be told, everyone was so jazzed to see us transform these spaces,” Hyland explained. For a production that regularly involved gore and geysers of blood, the communities they worked with were game. Here Tonner-Connolly and Hyland discuss where Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma was filmed and why they brought back the largely forgotten technique of matte glass painting for this project.