Filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun’s mind-bending horror masterpiece, Teenage Sex and Death At Camp Miasma, is slashing its way to theaters this weekend on August 7th. At the center of this love letter to ‘80s horror is the masked killer, Little Death, portrayed by I Saw the TV Glow star Jack Haven. Nerdist had the opportunity to sit down with the versatile and charismatic actor, where they discuss the inspirations for Camp Miasma and Little Death, working with Jane, and the secret link between Maddie and Little Death.
Nerdist: First off, congratulations on the film! I really loved the work that you all did, and particularly, I really loved your performance. I think maybe general audiences may not realize how difficult it is to bring a character to life that has no dialogue– strictly through a physical performance. So I’m just curious about what your approach was like for the character of Little Death, and how it differed from a more dialogue-driven role?
Jack Haven: The most important thing to me was finding the physicality, obviously. Because, like, that’s what I had, was the body. So I made a few friends– once at a pier in Jersey, and then once in Fort Green Park– film me doing different walks. I would just, like, stomp across the grasslands, and then watch them afterwards and try to incorporate different characters.
I was consuming mass amounts of slasher films so I had a color palette of slasher movements, and also just what felt scariest in my body. And it ended up being, like, a Terminator type of thing. Like a Michael Myers, Terminator thing that was totally unmoving in the shoulders.
I also wanted it to feel like it could have been anybody in the suit. Because I felt like there was a whole cast of people who had played Little Death over time.
Oh, I love that! I’m curious, what was your visibility like in the mask? I love the montage of the murders in the original Camp Miasma, but I’m very curious what sort of vision you had from such a challenging mask to wear?
Haven: Yes. Well, I’ll give you a sort of overall picture. So it was extremely tight to the head, because it was a fitting of my scalp that I’d done. So it was, like, scalp, but on top of scalp. Same size.
Then the screen pressed directly against my nose. There was, like, a black mesh screen inside. And then it was a little hole. So I couldn’t really see anything, which was honestly, for me, ideal. Because it felt like I was in, like, a log cabin alone. And I was just looking out my window at stuff that was happening that wasn’t really my concern, you know?
So obviously, the film pays such a loving tribute to the slasher subgenre of films, and the impact it’s had on audiences throughout the last 30-40 years. Do you have a fond slasher memory, or remember the first one you saw?
Haven: I think the first one I saw that really moved me was Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original, and I saw it when I was older. I saw it when I was 23, I think. I saw it while I was making a movie in Cape Town, and it was, like, a sleepover vibe with everyone. I just remember almost vomiting. Like, running around the room screaming because it was so intense. I still feel that way when I watch that movie! I still feel sick to my stomach, and I love that feeling. I find it really clarifying.
I love the influences that Jane pulled from for this film, both with Friday the 13th, and, kind of more interestingly– particularly with Little Death– the influence of something like Sleepaway Camp. How aware were you of that film, and sort of the cultural relevance it had, and did that impact your character at all?
Haven: I watched Sleepaway Camp because Jane told me that it was referenced, and that was my first time seeing it. I think it’s amazing. I think that ending…that last moment is, like, gut-wrenching. It’s… it’s really amazing that moment of Angela with the mask.
But yeah, I mean, I think it’s fascinating to know our roots. To know the roots of the perception of transness. But to me, I think I always find it really tickles me because I think it’s sort of sweet to see how innocently we’ve been affected as audiences. And the ways that our fears are actually,
just kind of like us? And we’re nerds, you know? It’s like, they’re scared of just us, and we’re just nerds.
So this is your second time working with Jane now. How has your creative relationship evolved from I Saw the TV Glow to Camp Miasma, and at what point did you become part of this project?
Haven: So, Jane asked me to do this after we saw the Brat Summer tour, Charlie XCX.
Amazing.
Haven: They’d asked me about this movie and described, like, the helmet and the slobbering tongue, and I was totally in.
We’ve talked a little bit about it being, like, a continuation of Maddie. That it sort of feels like a heightened Maddie. This character that has, like, removed their self from the accepted reality, and is watching from the outside. Sort of what seems, like, vacantly, but is actually deeply invested in humanity.
And yeah, I think my collaboration with them just gets deeper, because I feel like we just get closer and trust each other more.
I loved the way that Jane framed excess and pleasure in a lot of ways in this film, particularly when it came to junk food. I’m very curious, do you have a sort of, like, ideal movie snack?
Haven: Movie snack? Yeah, straight up popcorn and peanut M&Ms, mixed. Yeah, I don’t… I don’t waver from that.
That’s the correct answer.
Haven: A burrito would be good too though. Because it’s something you can hold, and you could eat it in a movie.
What do you nerd out about?
Haven: Oh my god, well, I nerd out about a couple things. The radio station WFMU, which is a Jersey local free-form radio station. One of the last in the country, and the greatest radio station in the universe. Particularly the show “Well-Dressed Fancy Dandies with Kens and Andys”– which is Andy Breckman, the creator of Monk, that’s his show.
I also nerd out about multidimensional beings, basically. And, like, hyperdimensionality, and…yeah, I guess, like, the unreality of space-time.
Yeah, I won’t get started on that now.
Teenage Sex and Death At Camp Miasma hits theaters August 7th.