This is probably not the path that fans of Hannah Einbinder might have expected the Emmy winner to take following the fifth and final season of Hacks. But then again, Einbinder’s turn in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is truly stunning, much as her role as the flappable assistant to the unflappable aging comedian (multi-Emmy-winner Jean Smart) in Hacks.  

Einbinder and Camp Miasma’s wunderkind indie director Jane Schoenbrun were in town Friday night for the film’s Canadian première at Fantasia and, not surprisingly, received a tumultuous reception with a five-minute standing ovation after the screening at Concordia’s Hall Theatre. Yeah, Camp Miasma more than meets the mandatory Fantasia esoteric standard.

Camp Miasma is both a no holds barred salute to and a wonderfully wicked send-up of the slasher-flick genre. Einbinder is cast as Kris, an up-and-coming sensitive director hired by a Hollywood studio to resurrect the Camp Miasma series in a woke-ish kind of way.

But Kris has different intentions. She would like to conscript the girl who starred in the first episode and then turned her back on the movie biz — think Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard. The girl, Billy, is now a reclusive adult (Gillian Anderson) and so Camp Miasma springs to life, love and gore.

The casting and style are inspired. Its execution would leave Friday the 13th’s Jason salivating.

Einbinder’s Kris........

© Montreal Gazette