When Jane Schoenbrun was a child, they went with their parents to the movies. The local multiplex was playing James and the Giant Peach, and the future filmmaker was ready to settle in for an afternoon of animated fun involving grasshoppers, glowworms, and centipedes. There was, however, a slight hitch in the family’s plan. Which they realized the minute the lights went down and a different movie started up.
“We accidentally went into the theater showing Scream,” Schoebrun says. “I don’t know if you remember how that movie starts, but it just says the word ‘Scream,’ and then there’s a slash through the screen. I have this sense memory of almost, like, shitting my pants. I got up and literally sprinted out of the theater.”
Both Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson — the stars of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Schoenbrun’s new film that premiered at Cannes the previous evening — burst into laughter. Then Einbinder lets out an “aww” and puts her hand on the writer-director’s shoulder.
“I must have been seven when that came out,” Schoenbrun says, scrunching their face slightly at the memory. “But by the time I was eight, I was obsessed with horror movies. They had the exact same attraction as, you know, the porn magazine in the woods — this forbidden but very alluring, very scary thing. I remember the feeling of being in the horror section at the video store, and it was like you weren’t supposed to go over there — even the boxes could be potentially dangerous. But it’s also like: Child’s Play 3? Puppetmaster 4?” Their eyes open wide. “What’s happening here?”
