Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland

i originally saw this film back in 1989 when i was 14,i recently purchased it on video over the internet purely for nostalgia reasons!watching this film now,i can see how badly acted it really is ,the script is awfull!the gore score is pretty non existent thanks to censorship on both sides of the atlantic!BUT on the plus side it's trashy campy atmosphere does make the film watchable!pamela springsteen is perfect as serial killer angela(although you can see her losing interest in the character in this one)however if you like cheesy 80's slashers you can do a lot worse than this!check out part 2 first,it's much better!part 1 is due on dvd in july!maybe these will follow!

Angela (Pamela Springsteen) returns to the same camp where she slaughtered the inhabitants the year before under an assumed identity. Renamed Camp New Horizons, the coordinators seek to bring together privileged kids from the suburbs & small towns with underprivileged kids from the big cities. Michael J. Pollard appears as one of the camp counselors. The other counselor is reminiscent of Paula Dean.

"Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland" (1989) is a rehash of the previous film (1988) with the same director/writer team and star (Springsteen), but of course a whole new cast of victims. The film even features cuts by the same semi-obscure 80's bands: Anvil ("Wild Eyes"), Obsession ("Methods of Madness" & "Killer Elite") and John Altyn ("Sleepaway"). The main difference is a focus on tent camping and the mixing of "rich" kids with "poor."

The movie's fun, but it lacks the mojo of the previous film. There's less depth as far as human interest goes: The characters and their relations are so exaggerated it's campy, which kills any realism. Yes, I realize it's an amusing 80's slasher flick set at a youth camp, but the two preceding movie's included gems in the coming-of-age context, which is largely lacking here. Still, "Sleepaway Camp III" has its entertaining moments. Tracy Griffith as redhead Marcia and Stacie Lambert as Jan are highlights.

The film runs 1 hour, 20 minutes, and was shot in Bremen, Georgia, about an hour's drive west of Atlanta (the same as Part II); with the opening scenes shot in Atlanta.

GRADE: C

The first movie in this series is the one with the twist, that made it a cult hit. I thought I watched the second one recently but must have skipped it so I'll have to watch it soon. This one is ok, but still filled with bad acting and nothing to set it aside from any other slasher.

Fairly early in the film, our lovable murderess asks, "Why did I think this year would be any different?" And this unlocks why part 3 still works: gone is the chipper camp counselor and her hopes of making good clean friends. Now, returning incognito as a camper, she realizes the world is a terrible terrible place filled with terrible terrible people. Round 3 of the chaos, and she picks up her axe with the same sigh and groan you might hear from a daughter assigned to "wash the dishes, make your bed, clean the toilets, and take out the trash." Why can't she find people who deserve to live for once?

That's not to say Sleepaway Camp 3 has lost its sense of humor. Far from it. It delights in exploiting a silly trust building exercise: Angela gets to tie up and lead her blindfolded partner through the woods. "You do drugs?" Angela quizzes her buddy. To which the girl replies, "Doesn't everyone?" Like the good girl-scout she is, Angie leads this poor misguided soul to miraculous deliverance, and I say miraculous because of how far fetched the murder is (but it's still a treat to watch.) Angela, herself, still has her sly wisecracks and all-too-honest answers to questions (questions like "where'd you learn to chop wood like that?"), only the delivery has changed from cheerful optimism to "why me?" (although she does sing the Happy Camper song over one of the murders.)

And this time she gets to play with more colorful, over the top, (read: annoying) fodder! We have a perverted old man, lazy hypocrite, a rapper, a rich snob, a dufus, a—why I am even bothering? Never mind, them. Angie'll get to them sooner or later (hurry up on the rapper … please, God, hurry up.) The group of campers split up into 3 smaller groups, and our heroine dispatches each sub-group one at a time and then shows up to the next group like a lost puppy, "I was told to switch with someone from this group" and the fun starts again.

Unlike most slashers, the kills largely take place in broad daylight giving the whole scenario a matter-of-fact quality that I liked. This *is* Angela's day job, after all. She's not Jason or Freddy – the girl has to sleep sometime. Besides, I like the idea of her moonlighting as a jazz musician or a dance instructor or a cop with Stendhal Syndrome or something.

Once again the series misses a number of opportunities to really rip into the genre's shortcomings (like poking fun at the gore obsession.) But the film's unwillingness to do anything significant with Barney (father of Sean in the previous film) bothered me the most. Here was a chance to actually build up a sympathetic character – someone we'd actually root for to stop Angela. Or perhaps even build him up as a character we really despise who could actually threaten Angela (early in the film he's asked what he would do if he came across Angela Baker. Without hesitation he answers, "I'd kill her.") War of the killers? Who do we root for – the wickedly fun Angela, or a revenge-driven father? This would take Sleepaway Camp into entirely new territory, allowing it to stand apart from the existing entries. But, nope, Barney exists as another victim for Angela, and after a brief unsatisfactory confrontation it's a moot point.

Like it's predecessor, SC3: Teenage Wasteland never hits the grand slam it should. But, what the hell, I love it anyway.

Having seen and loved the first two, I don't really know why it took me so long to finally watch this one. Man, I'm glad I did. Teenage Wasteland is every bit as good as it its predecessors and I laughed all the way through it. Here are a few of the film's highlights:

1.) Death by garbage truck 2.) Death by Lawnmower 3.) Death by flag-pole 4.) Arms ripped off, via Jeep.

The list goes on and on. Angela's one-liners are better than ever and it stays in the same vein as part two. Pamela Springsteen does another good job and they left room for a sequal, which, rumor has it, is in the works. Check it out.