Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma screens Sept. 4 as part of the Friday Night Weird film series. Courtesy: Mubi
As the aspens turn and the temps simmer down, the autumnal melancholy of the moment finds us turning to our friends and loved ones with a burning question: “Wanna watch a fucked-up movie?”
Here at Caribou Current world headquarters, the answer is always yes. That’s why we bring you our regular rundown on what’s in store at Friday Night Weird, the Dairy Arts Center’s year-round underground cinema showcase taking place each week inside the dark embrace of the Boedecker Theater.
As always, we turn to the Dairy’s resident “Queen of the Weird,” the one and only Shay Wescott, to help us get our heads around all the strangeness in store this month.
The Camp Miasma franchise has seen better days. Years of slipshod sequels and yawning fans have delivered the once-proud slasher series into the dustbin of B-movie purgatory, until a plucky young director (Hannah Einbinder) takes the reins of resurrection. But all hell breaks loose when she connects with the original film’s “final girl” (Gillian Anderson) and sets into motion “a blood-soaked world of desire, fear and delirium.”
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is the third feature from celebrated millennial moviemaker Jane Schoenbrun. The final offering in their self-dubbed “screen trilogy,” following 2021 Sundance darling We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and 2024 breakout I Saw the TV Glow, Schoenbrun’s latest continues a tradition of bending genre traditions to dazzling effect.
“For slasher fans, there are so many fun Easter eggs. I was the person obnoxiously leaning over to whisper, ‘That’s a reference to Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives’ — and yes, I whisper in Roman numerals,” Wescott says. “But it’s also an entire deconstruction and reinvention of the genre from a fresh gaze.”
“It’s outright silly compared to Schoenbrun’s previous work. But I also think there is something incredibly profound in that playfulness,” she continues. “It’s so joyful and it’s without a doubt the first and only slasher film to ever make me cry.”
“I think there’s a portal to hell in your laundromat.” With this alarming discovery, the events of Woody Bess’ tightrope horror-comedy debut snap into place, as a medical debt collector (Trey Holland) gets sucked into the fiery underworld by way of a washing machine at his local laundromat.
“It’s both outrageous and deeply relatable, revealing a deeper truth about the ways we compartmentalize everyday evil. He is a medical debt collector after all,” Wescott says. “And it certainly doesn’t hurt to have both Keith David and Richard Kind, horror and comedy royalty in their respective rights, turning in stellar performances.”
A mutating virus is released during a biotech conference. Authorities seal the facility. People get infected and start acting strange. You guessed it: We’ve got zombies, folks.
But don’t expect your standard flesheating fare from Colony, the latest from acclaimed director Yeon Sang-ho. This claustrophobic nightmare, starring Gianna Jun as a professor who bands together with a small group of survivors to escape, is full of fresh ideas.
“After some exhaustingly uncreative years of the genre, we’re getting some excellent zombie films, particularly in the revival of the 28 Days franchise,” Wescott says. “So it’s very exciting to have Yeon Sang-ho, who reinvigorated the genre with Train to Busan, back with another one.”
Drugs, danger and crime are on the menu as two dirtbag drivers (Dave Franco, O'Shea Jackson Jr.) transport a wealthy teen to rehab in Idiots. Described by Deadline as “Dumb and Dumber meets Midnight Run,” this madcap thrill ride from director Macon Blair has all the beats of a comedy crime classic, filtered through the mind of a singular talent.
“Idiots has a premise that feels pretty familiar — most crime movies do,” Wescott says. “In this case, it’s not so much about selling the premise as it is selling that the premise is through the lens of writer-director Macon Blair.”
“Blair has proven himself to be the perfect mix of whacky eccentricity and gritty realism to depict this kind of underground criminality and irreverence in ways that are unexpectedly fun, while keeping the edges purposefully sharp.”
