Chattering television and film stars stopped talking suddenly on Wednesday night as the actor Jack Haven, standing before a line of reporters, let out a piercing scream and pointed in the distance.
The crowd turned to stare at Haven, who was mid-interview on a fake grass carpet, stained with fake red blood, at the premiere of “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” from the director Jane Schoenbrun.
The film, a horror movie made by horror fans, stars the comedian Hannah Einbinder as Kris, a director rebooting a beloved slasher franchise who becomes obsessed with the star of the original film, played by Gillian Anderson.
The movie was a breakout hit at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Queer Palm, which honors films that spotlight L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ themes or feminist perspectives, or challenge gender norms. Distributed by Mubi, the film will open in theaters on August 7.
“Making this movie was the best and most joyful experience of my life — period,” Schoenbrun said when introducing the film at the Directors Guild of America Theater on Sunset Boulevard, before a crowd that included the actor Kristen Stewart and the showrunners behind “Hacks,” Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky.
Schoenbrun, who also wrote and directed the films “I Saw the TV Glow” and “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” said they had loved scary movies since they were young.
“I think when you’re a kid growing up in a really normal quote-unquote place,” Schoenbrun said, “and you’re like a little freak, you look for all of the places that are giving you clues that the world is maybe a little weirder and creepier than everyone is telling you it is.”
Gillian Anderson said she doesn’t watch many horror films, after seeing “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” when she was very young and was “stuck in a brown house having smoked some really strong weed.”
But Einbinder, who said she wasn’t easily scared, thinks horror and comedy are similar because both “tap into something visceral in the body,” she said.
After the screening, the viewers seemed more energized than scared as they shuffled into black cars for an after-party at El Coyote, an enduring Mexican restaurant known for its margaritas and for serving the last meal to some of the Manson family’s victims in 1969.
Outside the restaurant, under glowing neon lights, hopeful fans waited with “X-Files” posters, trying to flag down the stars for autographs. Inside, the cast and crew packed into vinyl booths, under a ceiling dripping with piñatas and multicolored string lights, and snacked on quesadillas and fried chicken nuggets.
“Coyote is a Los Angeles staple,” explained Einbinder, who said she had spent time at the restaurant in high school. “It’s buzzing and always teeming with life.”
Anderson said she hadn’t been back in 20 years. “And I used to come regularly,” she added.
The actor Mark Indelicato, a star of “Hacks,” grabbed a blood red cocktail jelly as he made his way to the patio, where guests gathered and smoked around a stucco fireplace. Stewart, wearing a bright orange beanie and cutoff shorts, lit a cigarette for Statsky. Inside, as Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” blared over the speakers, Haven huddled in a booth with Keir Gilchrist, who starred in the television series “Atypical” alongside Haven.
Around the restaurant, guests also discussed how horror movies can offer viewers a way to process emotions that can feel dark and shameful. (Throughout the film, Einbinder’s and Anderson’s characters work through their own sexual hang-ups, finding new kinds of pleasure.)
“Four different people have said to me — literally four, ” Anderson recounted, “it’s about orgasms, right?”
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