As Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma earns widespread critical acclaim (96% on Rotten Tomatoes!), Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder unpack the queer, punk and “radical” themes lurking beneath the gloriously strange meta-slasher.

Directed by Jane Schoenbrun, the visionary filmmaker behind We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021) and I Saw the TV Glow (2024), the horror film stars Hacks icon Einbinder as Kris, a queer filmmaker tasked with reviving the long-running Camp Miasma franchise.

Her search for a way forward leads her to Billy (Anderson), the reclusive actress who played the Final Girl in the original movie – and soon, the pair “descend into a frenzy of psychosexual mania”.

Hype surrounding Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma was rather insane before it even reached cinemas, with much of it stemming from the casting of two actors who have carved out wildly different but equally iconic places in queer pop culture.

Einbinder has become synonymous with her Emmy-winning role as bicon Ava Daniels on Hacks, while Anderson has earned queer icon status through roles in The Fall, Sex Education and The X-Files. Dana Scully herself wasn’t queer, but Anderson’s legendary FBI agent served as a queer awakening for [insert really big number here – maybe in the trillions] – I mean, there's even a “Dana Scully Made Me Gay” movement!

But Einbinder tells Gay Times that, although “the enthusiasm [from fans] was incredibly encouraging” heading into filming, their dynamic on set was primarily “shaped by our connection to the material and thus each other”.