How filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun uses digital horror to map the experience of gender transition
In short: Jane Schoenbrun builds cinematic worlds where the boundary between reality and the internet dissolves. By blending creepypasta aesthetics with the visceral discomfort of dysphoria, they create stories that mirror the trans experience. For Schoenbrun, the screen is not just a medium; it is a profound metaphor for self-discovery.
Born in 1987 in Queens, New York, Jane Schoenbrun’s creative foundation was built on the early internet. As a teenager, they frequented forums for shows like The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even crafting fake spoilers that circulated online. This early immersion in participatory digital culture and fan communities deeply informed their later work, which often examines how shared media can foster identity and community formation.
Schoenbrun’s directorial career began with the 2018 documentary A Self-Induced Hallucination, which explored the Slender Man phenomenon. Their subsequent feature films, We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021) and I Saw the TV Glow (2024), solidified their reputation for blending low-budget horror with intense psychodrama. These films, along with the upcoming novel trilogy Public Access Afterworld, form a thematically linked exploration of transition, self-annihilation, and the blurring of reality. Schoenbrun has described I Saw the TV Glow as a meditation on the 'egg crack'—the pivotal moment of realizing one's trans identity.
Central to Schoenbrun’s craft is the use of screens as a metaphor for the dissociation often felt during gender dysphoria. Their work, which critics have compared to the body-horror sensibilities of David Cronenberg, frequently features characters struggling to reconcile their physical selves with their internal realities. After realizing they were trans in 2019, Schoenbrun began incorporating these personal, unarticulated feelings into their scripts. Today, their projects—ranging from slasher films like Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma to a series adaptation of Black Hole—continue to push the boundaries of how transness and identity are represented on screen.
Beyond their filmography, Schoenbrun maintains a complex creative life, including a transition into literature and television. While they once planned to adapt the classic trans novel Nevada, they exited the project due to creative disagreements. Now, they focus on expansive, multi-platform storytelling that attempts to close the gap between the self and the screen, aiming to articulate the complexities of becoming in a digital age.
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