Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Screenplay: Jane Schoenbrun
Cast: Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson
Year: 2026
Country: USA
BBFC Certification: 18
Duration: 106 min
In this UK Premiere, Jane Schoenbrun, (I Saw the TV Glow), serves up an exquisitely layered psychosexual horror-fest that is equal parts slasher tribute and incisive industry satire.
Hannah Einbinder plays a wunderkind filmmaker tasked with resurrecting an ailing franchise built around a notorious villain known as Little Death. Her research trip takes her to the original Camp Miasma, where she tracks down the reclusive “final girl” of the first film, a role inhabited with extraordinary depth by Gillian Anderson.
What follows is a slow-burn collision between old and new, idealism and pragmatism, nostalgia and reinvention. Schoenbrun doesn’t shy away from slasher conventions – the blood, the gore, the shocks are all present and correct, woven through both the in-world franchise footage and the unraveling real-life drama. But the film’s true engine is the relationship between its two leads, charged with desire, rivalry and mutual obsession.
The chemistry between Einbinder and Anderson is genuinely incendiary. Their scenes together, particularly a remarkable sequence exploring the younger filmmaker’s idea of orgasmic abandon, guided by Anderson’s character and her skillful fingers, earn every bit of the film’s “screen might catch fire” reputation. The connection between Little Death’s mythology and the literal petite mort is handled with real wit.
This is a film of impressive control: a multi-layered script, confident pacing, and two actresses at the absolute top of their game, given the space to go all in. I missed an earlier, sold-out screening with cast and crew Q&A, but judging by the audience’s applause as the credits rolled in the one I attended, this is a film with great promise and well-earned reputation.
A genuine highlight of SXSW London 2026.