About a month ago, my editor reached out and essentially ordered me to sign up for a press junket for a new movie that finally came out in theaters last week. It’s called Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, and it’s a knowingly campy and often quite perceptive horror/comedy written and directed by the acclaimed filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw The TV Glow, We’re All Going To The World’s Fair). The film’s meta-narrative concerns an acclaimed maker of horror films (Hannah Einbinder) who is hired to reboot an ’80s slasher franchise centered on a mad killer named Little Death, and the reclusive starlet (Gillian Anderson) she’s trying to recruit for the movie. Though the actual point of Teenage Sex, it seems, is exploring the ways that even the junkiest pop culture we consume as kids continues to inform, shape, and (yes) warp our minds well into adulthood.
My editor did not insist that I write about this film for any of those attributes, however. Instead, he immediately sent me an urgent Slack message because of one scene that takes place at roughly the film’s midpoint. Now, to discuss this scene in detail would mean spoiling what is the flashiest set piece, so I’ll only divulge exactly two pieces of information. One is not specific at all, especially since we’re talking about a “horror/comedy” here. The other is more specific, and might be considered a spoiler, but it pertains to a needle drop so incongruous that it should compel the average viewer to see this movie more rather than less, just to witness how the hell they pull this one off.
Okay, here goes: It’s a murder scene — a deliriously gory mass murder scene — set to “A Long December” by Counting Crows.
As perhaps the most prolific “talker about Counting Crows-related ephemera, but especially ‘A Long December’” in modern music criticism, I understood perfectly why my editor wanted me to go on this junket and ask the writer/director why they used this song, and why they used it in this way, and what (if anything) might Adam Duritz have to say about any of this.
So far, I’ve tried to not be spoiler-y about the scene, but the interview explores how the song is used in the film so please stop reading if you haven’t seen the film or want to see the movie without any prior knowledge.
Hi Jane. I have very specific questions for my time. I’m only asking about “A Long December.”
Sure.
For starters: Why this song? And why use it this way?
Well, the first thing about Counting Crows is that I have a second cousin, Doug, who was their guitar tech in the ’90s. So when I was like 12 years old, I got to go see them. And I went backstage and I met them. They were such a gateway band for me. I loved that music. Their first two albums and their live album that they put out around the same time, they were constantly in rotation. And so much of the music that I still love, I feel like owes such a spiritual debt to those records. The sort of confessional singer-songwriter, happy/sadness of those songs, it’s eternal. I went through a breakup in 2024 and I was just clinging to Recovering the Satellites.
I had written “Nightswimming” [by R.E.M.] into the script for that sequence. I was like, “It’s such a queer anthem. They can’t see me naked swimming at night.” I was like, “This is the perfect song for a killing spree.” And then somewhere along listening over and over again to Recovering the Satellites, I was like, “Wait a second. Is it ‘A Long December’?” I think the first thing that tickled me was the Hollywood repetition. And I was like, “Oh my God, Little Death can chop someone’s head off every time Adam Duritz says Hollywood.” But also the song’s tone is the movie’s tone, I think. Sort of like, it’s been a long year and it’s kind of sucked, but next year is going to be a little bit better. That kind of hard-won, resilient triumph. Without that feeling, the scene is meaningless. You’re just watching someone kill people.
It’s interesting that you considered a different ’90s alt-rock piano ballad for that scene.
It was really a Sophie’s Choice for me between the two. I was texting with Lindsey from Snail Mail, who is a friend. And I was like, “All right, Lindsey, completely theoretical question: If you were going to watch a four-minute one shot killing spree set to a ’90s piano ballad, would it be ‘A Long December’ or ‘Nightswimming’ for you?” And she voted “Long December,” and that did kind of tip it for me. I was like, “That’s what my heart is telling me and I think I got to make this change.”
In terms of the lyrical content, “Nightswimming” has always spoken to me in terms of the shyness, the coming out of one’s own shell, the kind of bashfulness around one’s own body. Just the romance, the instant nostalgia of nighttime in the summer by the water. Obviously, there’s something of that in the slasher movie also, so that felt like a natural fit. But with “A Long December,” it has some kind of transcendence. When it hits its “na-na-nas,” it really hits it.
Some people are going to see that scene and view it as purely ironic. But it’s clear that you love the song.
I think that in general, so many great needle drops are unexpected or they’re tonally, not clashing, but adding a really unexpected spice to the dish. Obviously, that is going on here. But I’ve loved Counting Crows since I was 12 years old. I could go deep on it. I love those records and I think he’s a brilliant songwriter and performer. I remember I was doing “A Long December” in karaoke a few years ago, and my friend Gracie was like, “I think that was the pinnacle moment of pop rock radio being great.”
It’s just like, what a great song to have been very popular on the radio. It’s just a perfect fucking song. It’s so good. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times, obviously over the last couple of years working on the movie and I don’t get tired of it. I just think it’s a standard. It’s funny, I saw MJ Lenderman was covering it right after we shot the movie.
Has Adam Duritz seen the movie and if so what does he think?
We texted a little bit and he told me he was stoked to have “A Long December” be part of a one shot. I don’t think he’s seen it yet. I saw him on the RSVP list for tonight. I don’t know if that was fake or not though. I can’t wait for him to see it. I hope he loves it. I think he’ll like it.
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