Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma takes pains to deliver a slasher fan’s dream

《米亚斯玛夏令营的少男少女与死亡》：精心打造的砍杀片影迷之梦

Here’s one for all the kids who were exposed to lurid slasher movies when they were way too young and it kinda messed them up… but they’re finally ready to laugh about it. Jane Schoenbrun’s latest movie, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, is shocking, emotional, provocative, numbing, warm, witty, and surreal. It’s a slasher nerd’s dream, with a David Fincher-esque attention to detail in the opening sequence, which was designed using insights gathered from horror convention-goers. 这部电影献给所有那些在年纪尚小时就接触过耸人听闻的砍杀电影，并因此受到某种心理冲击，但如今终于能对此付之一笑的孩子们。简·舍恩布伦（Jane Schoenbrun）的最新力作《米亚斯玛夏令营的少男少女与死亡》（Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma）令人震惊、感性、挑衅、麻木、温暖、诙谐且超现实。这是砍杀片极客的梦想之作，其开场序列展现了堪比大卫·芬奇（David Fincher）式的细节把控，而这些细节正是基于从恐怖电影大会参与者那里收集的见解所设计。

Written to indulge superfans, the movie also makes sure to not lose the general audience. Just as the geeky navel-gazing threatens to become tedious, a joke or a wink keeps the audience laughing and focused on the fantastical story Schoenbrun actually wants to tell—which isn’t a genuine slasher at all. 这部电影在满足铁杆粉丝的同时，也确保不会流失普通观众。正当那些极客式的自我沉思即将变得乏味时，一个笑话或一个眼神暗示总能让观众开怀大笑，并重新聚焦于舍恩布伦真正想讲述的奇幻故事——这其实根本不是一部纯粹的砍杀片。

The movie follows Kris (Hannah Einbinder), a queer film director tasked with creating a “woke” reboot of a politically incorrect sleepaway camp franchise in the vein of Friday the 13th. On her way to meet the reclusive final girl from the original Camp Miasma film—Billy Preston, portrayed deliciously by a junk food-obsessed Gillian Anderson—Kris fails to nail her pitch and instead gets yanked into a fantasy buried deep in her psyche while at the abandoned set where Billy now lives. 电影讲述了酷儿电影导演克里斯（汉娜·艾因宾德饰）的故事，她受命要对一个类似于《13号星期五》、政治不正确的夏令营系列电影进行“觉醒”式的重启。在去见原版《米亚斯玛夏令营》电影中那位隐居的“幸存女孩”——比利·普雷斯顿（由沉迷垃圾食品的吉莲·安德森精彩演绎）的路上，克里斯的提案失败了，反而被卷入了一场深埋在她潜意识里的幻想中，而地点就在比利如今居住的废弃片场。

The movie is very personal for Schoenbrun, who told NPR that they grew up watching films like Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare On Elm Street, and feel like they know slasher movies “so, so deeply.” Just as they did with their prior film, I Saw the TV Glow, their goal with creating the Camp Miasma franchise within the film was to tap into the intense emotions of being a kid developing an obsession with an entertainment property that’s not intended for their eyes. 这部电影对舍恩布伦来说非常私人。他们告诉 NPR，自己是在观看《13号星期五》、《月光光心慌慌》和《猛鬼街》等电影中长大的，并感觉自己对砍杀电影有着“极其深刻”的了解。正如他们在前作《我看电视发光》（I Saw the TV Glow）中所做的那样，他们通过在片中创造“米亚斯玛夏令营”系列，旨在挖掘那种孩童时期对不适龄娱乐作品产生痴迷时的强烈情感。

In Kris’ case, that obsession was with Camp Miasma, its tortured villain Little Death, and the oversexualized victims who ended up on the other end of Little Death’s spear, terrible sequel after terrible sequel. 在克里斯的案例中，这种痴迷的对象是《米亚斯玛夏令营》、其饱受折磨的反派“小死亡”（Little Death），以及那些在一部又一部糟糕的续集中，最终死于“小死亡”长矛之下的过度性化受害者。

Matte paintings add to the fantasy

遮罩绘景增添奇幻色彩

The film’s production designers, Brandon Tonner-Connolly and Matt Hyland, explained in recent interviews that Schoenbrun wanted the movie’s visuals to be as emotionally charged as the subject matter. From the outset, Schoenbrun asked the designers to look to old moviemaking tricks for inspiration to make the landscapes at the Camp Miasma set as dreamy and immersive as the director envisioned. To achieve this, the designers decided to revive an old pre-CGI technique called matte painting. 该片的制作设计师布兰登·托纳-康诺利（Brandon Tonner-Connolly）和马特·海兰（Matt Hyland）在最近的采访中解释说，舍恩布伦希望电影的视觉效果能像主题一样充满情感张力。从一开始，舍恩布伦就要求设计师们从古老的电影制作技巧中寻找灵感，使米亚斯玛夏令营片场的景观达到导演心目中那种梦幻且沉浸的效果。为了实现这一点，设计师们决定复兴一种名为“遮罩绘景”（matte painting）的旧式前 CGI 技术。

The only problem, they said, was that no one alive knew exactly how the filmmakers of the ’60s got the technique to work. So the designers essentially winged it, scouring old film books and blogs for any kind of direction. To create the otherworldly shots, they painted ethereal backdrops on glass, leaving some parts of the canvas blank so the actors could be positioned to appear as if they were walking through them. 他们表示，唯一的问题是，现在已经没有人确切知道 60 年代的电影制作人是如何运用这项技术的了。因此，设计师们基本上是靠摸索，翻遍了旧电影书籍和博客寻找任何指导。为了创造出超凡脱俗的镜头，他们在玻璃上绘制了空灵的背景，并留出部分空白，以便演员可以站在特定位置，看起来就像是走在背景之中。

The process was anxiety-inducing, the designers said, since they wouldn’t know whether it would work until the director lined up the glass with the camera lens and the actors moved through the empty spaces. But the attention to detail paid off, allowing the designers to be much more playful with the scene art. For moviegoers, it’s a reason to lean in close to the screen rather than duck for cover from the next jump scare. 设计师们说，这个过程令人焦虑，因为直到导演将玻璃与摄像机镜头对齐，且演员穿过空白区域时，他们才知道效果如何。但对细节的关注得到了回报，使设计师们能够更自由地发挥场景艺术。对于观众来说，这让他们更愿意凑近屏幕细看，而不是为了躲避下一个跳跃式惊吓（jump scare）而缩起身子。

Used to memorable effect in classic films like Metropolis or Hitchcock’s The Birds, matte paintings require everything to go right to get the shot. For Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, five matte paintings were created by a fine art painter, scenic artist Joel Rodriguez. Schoenbrun was so delighted by the result that they reportedly added more footage with the glass shots than initially planned, using them to warp Billy’s world to convey the increasingly wild emotions Kris is feeling. 遮罩绘景曾在《大都会》或希区柯克的《群鸟》等经典电影中产生过令人难忘的效果，但它要求一切环节都必须完美才能拍出理想镜头。对于《米亚斯玛夏令营的少男少女与死亡》，美术画家兼布景师乔尔·罗德里格斯（Joel Rodriguez）创作了五幅遮罩绘景。舍恩布伦对结果非常满意，据报道，他们增加了比原计划更多的玻璃拍摄镜头，利用它们来扭曲比利的现实世界，从而传达克里斯内心日益狂野的情绪。

Some painted scenes played with cool and warm contrasts, showing purple mountains on cantaloupe-colored skies. One especially colorful backdrop punctuates a climactic scene in which Einbinder and Anderson walk hand-in-hand, covered in blood. But the most striking painting might be the flesh-padded backdrop in a scene with one of Anderson’s most memorable lines. Trying to help Kris recognize that she’s thinking about slashers too intellectually, Billy reminds her that the genre isn’t about gender or identity politics but “about two very simple things—flesh and fluids.” 一些绘景场景运用了冷暖对比，在哈密瓜色的天空中呈现出紫色的山脉。一个色彩斑斓的背景点缀了高潮戏份，艾因宾德和安德森手牵手走过，身上沾满了鲜血。但最引人注目的画作可能是在安德森贡献了最难忘台词之一的场景中，那个以肉色填充的背景。为了帮助克里斯意识到她对砍杀片的思考过于理智化，比利提醒她，这个类型片无关性别或身份政治，而是“关于两件非常简单的事情——血肉与体液”。

Do you like scary movies?

你喜欢恐怖电影吗？

There’s much more for fans of special effects to discover, from the practical snow used whenever feasible to the geysers of fake blood used to comedic effect. But the film’s complexity comes from the dynamic between Kris and Billy. Kris gradually realizes that she doesn’t want to simply recreate the look she saw on Billy’s face in the first movie. She wants to experience what it feels like to wear that expression herself and to see herself as vulnerable through Little Death’s eyes. 对于特效迷来说，还有更多值得探索的地方，从尽可能使用的实景雪花，到为了喜剧效果而喷涌的假血。但电影的复杂性源于克里斯和比利之间的互动。克里斯逐渐意识到，她不想仅仅重现她在第一部电影中看到的比利脸上的表情。她想亲身体验那种表情的感觉，并透过“小死亡”的眼睛审视脆弱的自己。

Instead of a window into the franchise, Billy serves as a patient sex guru/slasher spirit guide, encouraging Kris to release her shame and fully realize her most twisted fantasy. While inspired by psychosexual slashers, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is ultimately about exploring every angle of humanity’s irresistible urge to spook and be spooked—anyone who’s ever shouted “Boo!” in a giggling baby’s face can understand. 比利并没有成为通往该系列电影的窗口，而是充当了一位耐心的性导师/砍杀片精神向导，鼓励克里斯释放羞耻感，并充分实现她最扭曲的幻想。虽然灵感来源于心理性砍杀片，《米亚斯玛夏令营的少男少女与死亡》最终探讨的是人类那种无法抗拒的“吓人与被吓”冲动的方方面面——任何曾经对着咯咯笑的婴儿大喊“嘘！”的人都能理解这一点。

And that’s clear from the moment Kris gets to Billy’s home in the abandoned camp set. Near the beginning of the movie, Kris lets herself into Billy’s private cinema, which, of course, looms forebodingly before a dazzling matte-painted mountainscape. Anderson’s character makes her entrance by suddenly popping out from the shadows, startling Kris. “I’m sorry,” Billy tells Kris. “I saw you, and I wanted to scare you.” 这一点从克里斯到达废弃夏令营中比利的家那一刻起就显而易见。在电影开头附近，克里斯进入了比利的私人影院，影院坐落在一片令人眼花缭乱的遮罩绘景山峦前，显得阴森可怖。安德森饰演的角色突然从阴影中跳出来，吓了克里斯一跳。“对不起，”比利对克里斯说，“我看见你了，我想吓吓你。”

Slasher fans may be disappointed to learn that Schoenbrun has no interest in developing… 砍杀片影迷可能会失望地发现，舍恩布伦并没有兴趣开发……