From Sundance to Streaming: Revisiting Casey’s Story

Jane Schoenbrun’s new film, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, is currently drawing attention in theaters, but the director’s first feature deserves another look. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair premiered at Sundance in 2021 and introduced themes of online isolation and coming-of-age anxiety that Schoenbrun would later explore on a larger scale.

The film follows Casey, a lonely teenager who takes part in the World’s Fair Challenge, an online ritual that borrows from creepypasta and dare-based internet trends. Casey stares into a webcam in her bedroom as she recites an eerie mantra, draws blood with a pin, and later records videos about symptoms that supposedly leave participants turning into plastic or having their insides become Tetris pieces. Her father is heard only off-screen and mostly yelling, and Casey is never shown talking to people her own age.

The other significant character is JLB, a middle-aged man who watches Casey’s videos and claims she may be in danger. Their relationship adds voyeurism and discomfort without the film saying outright whether JLB’s attention is protective or predatory. That ambiguity is part of the film’s effect, making it an unsettling but intimate portrait of a young person seeking connection online.

What Makes We’re All Going to the World’s Fair Different

Schoenbrun’s early themes, before the bigger canvases

The film is less a conventional horror story than a coming-of-age drama wearing horror imagery. Schoenbrun treats body horror as a metaphor for the changes and isolation of adolescence. Later works such as I Saw the TV Glow and Camp Miasma expand the director’s interest in media, identity and surreal transformation, but here the style is smaller and more directly tied to webcam culture.

The uncomfortable ambiguity around JLB

The dynamic between Casey and JLB is deliberately unresolved. The film never states that he is grooming her, but his loneliness, his focus on a vulnerable teenager and the voyeuristic framing make the relationship feel unsafe. By refusing to resolve that question, Schoenbrun leaves viewers inside Casey’s uncertainty instead of offering an easy moral verdict.

What the film avoids

Many coming-of-age stories center a young female character’s sexual awakening. This film explicitly avoids sexualizing Casey and instead focuses on her need for belonging in an online world. That choice shifts the tension away from romance and toward the unsettling power imbalance of attention from strangers on the internet.

Where to Watch Schoenbrun’s Debut—and What to Expect

  • Where to stream: We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is available on Criterion Channel, Kanopy, and Hoopla.
  • Content note: The film includes on-screen self-harm with a pin and implied grooming. It is disturbing but not sexually explicit.
  • If you liked the director’s newer films: This debut is a quieter, smaller-scale companion that shows Schoenbrun’s recurring themes in their earliest form.