Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma (15, 112 mins) Verdict: Some like it hotRating: Five out of five starsAmid a juicy year for next-gen horror, this week dishes up its most lip-smacking morsel yet – even if it won't be to everyone's taste.Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma is the extraordinary vision of cult trans director Jane Schoenbrun.And just as Backrooms – created by a teenage YouTuber – became a box-office sensation earlier this summer, this one looks similarly primed to lure its young online fanbase out of their bedrooms and back into cinemas.The story's jumping-off point is Camp Miasma, a fictional slasher franchise from the 1980s. Its masked, spear-wielding killer is Little Death, the vengeful spirit of a bullied teenager who was raised as both a boy and a girl and drowned in the lake by the other kids at summer camp.Enter 'Sundance wunderkind' and all-round horror nerd Kris (Hannah Einbinder), a filmmaker best known for 'remaking Psycho from the shower curtain's perspective', who has been hired to reboot the franchise and make its problematic transphobic origins palatable to a younger generation.Kris travels to the abandoned summer camp where the original film was shot, now buried beneath The Shining-style snow, to meet its legendary heroine, Billy Presley (The X-Files' Gillian Anderson), the object of Kris's lifelong obsession. Every frame is beautifully shot and it's surprisingly funny. 'It's all just play,' Billy tells Kris.Schoenbrun keeps an impressively firm grip on tone, even as it veers between spot-on slasher spoof, psychosexual fever dream, surreal body horror, gay romance and something I can't even categorise. Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma is the vision of cult trans director Jane Schoenbrun, starring Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson The film's jumping-off point is Camp Miasma, a fictional slasher franchise from the 1980sThe taste test is in the outrageous title: you either want to see a movie called Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma, or you don't. Either way, Anderson is terrific: a slasher-movie Norma Desmond with an indelibly erotic way with KFC dipping sauce.Einbinder, meanwhile, is up for everything and, despite playing a close cousin of her character in TV comedy Hacks, is fully believable as a Gen Z horror nerd so confused by sex that she intellectualises desire almost out of existence.It gets messy. It gets pretentious. And it's not especially scary (the violence is almost cartoon-like). But it is funny and marvellously camp – in both senses of the word.Stop! That! Train! (15, 90 mins)Verdict: Drag Race meets Airplane!Rating: Four out of five starsAnd you don't get much camper than RuPaul's Drag Race.Produced by – and starring – RuPaul himself, Stop! That! Train! signalled a big-screen brand extension that screams vanity project with niche appeal.But this madcap riot deserves to be a runaway mainstream hit.The pitch is Airplane! with drag queens – all of whom are playing it straight, if that makes any sense. Though sense is surplus to requirements with a disaster-movie spoof this gloriously silly.Best pals Tess and DeeDee (played by Drag Race finalists Ginger Minj and Jujubee) have spent more than ten years as trolley dollies on no-frills Stank Rail.But when they finally wangle jobs aboard the super-luxe Glamazonian Express, disaster strikes! The brakes fail, hurtling the train into the path of a life-threatening 'stormaganza'.RuPaul plays a stupendously glam US Commander in Chief (President Gagwell) but never hogs the limelight. The bulging comedy ensemble also includes Chris Parnell, as the Captain; and a glittering array of celebrities, most of whom – Nicole Richie and Buffy icon Sarah Michelle Gellar aside – UK viewers probably won't recognise. No biggie.What matters is it works in a way that Scary Movie doesn't. These parodies are harder to pull off than they look. Not every joke hits but no matter, when the daft laughs keep hurtling towards you faster than the Southeastern highspeed.All films reviewed here are in cinemas from today. Stop! That! Train! is produced by RuPaul - who also stars in the action comedyAlso showingCoyote VS. ACME (PG, 103 mins) Rating: Four out of five stars Coyote VS. ACME (PG, 103 mins, four out of five stars) is a madcap, whip-smart live-action/animated hybrid.Fed up with the endless injuries incurred in his obsessive pursuit of the Road Runner, Wile E Coyote hires a lazy human lawyer (Will Forte) to sue the Acme Corporation (enter John Cena) over its chronically malfunctioning products.Bottling the lunatic fizz of the classic Looney Tunes cartoons, this inspired 21st-century Who Framed Roger Rabbit was made, then binned, by Warner Bros as a $30million tax write-off.That it has finally reached the big screen is thanks to public outcry – and somehow feels entirely in the spirit of the Coyote himself: a heartfelt paean to resilience and the unquenchable pursuit of the impossible. Beep! Beep! Coyote VS. ACME is a madcap, whip-smart live-action/animated hybrid starring Will Forte and Lana CondorSpa Weekend (15, 97 mins)Rating: One out of five starsA raucous, Bridesmaids-style comedy about stressed-out working moms, Spa Weekend (15, 97 mins, one out of five stars) sees seasoned comedy pros Leslie Mann, Isla Fisher, Anna Faris and Michelle Buteau behaving badly on a luxury spa break.As a stressed-out mother myself, at the end of my school-holiday tether, I was totally up for it. Yet even with my critical bar set to ‘low’, I found it excruciatingly bad. A scene involving goat yoga aside (don’t ask), I didn’t crack a single smile. Spa Weekend sees seasoned comedy pros Leslie Mann, Isla Fisher, Anna Faris and Michelle Buteau behaving badly on a luxury spa break& Sons (15, 120 mins)Rating: Two out of five stars Bill Nighy gives it plenty of wellie in & Sons (15, 120 mins, two out of five stars) as a tortured, alcoholic literary genius who hasn’t written anything, or left his house, for nearly 20 years.Facing death, he summons his estranged sons (Johnny Flynn and George MacKay) home to reconcile with their much younger brother (Noah Jupe), only to drop a bombshell on them and his long-suffering ex-wife (Imelda Staunton).Nighy and Staunton are skin-prickingly good. Yet even they can’t make this odd story compelling. At least Dominic West, dialling it up to 11 as a brash Hollywood exec, ensures we don’t nod off. Bill Nighy stars as a tortured, alcoholic literary genius who hasn’t written anything, or left his house, for nearly 20 years in & SonsMutiny (15, 95 mins)Rating: Two out of five starsMutiny (15, 95 mins, two out of five stars) is a Jason Statham flick. This one is set on a boat. Really, do you need to know more?Once again, he’s a hard-bitten, soft-centred loner traumatised by personal tragedy and capable of killing a man with one hand. Here he shoots, punches, stabs and harpoons his way through several container loads of people-trafficking baddies aboard a cargo ship.There’s a token hot blonde, tough-guy dialogue and a lot of scowling. Adrian Lester makes a surprise appearance.It’s more likely to get pulses resting than racing, but no matter. He’ll crank out another one soon. Jason Statham stars in action thriller Mutiny
FIVE-star review for Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma
Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma is the extraordinary vision of cult trans director Jane Schoenbrun.










