SleepawayCamp3

Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989)

Another summer brings another group of campers for Angela to murder. It has been a year since the events of Sleepaway Camp II and they have reopened the camp under a different name. This time campers are brought from the upper and lower classes so they can bond with each other. After doing away with one of the campers Angela takes her place and since no one knows what a post op Angela looks like she is able to sneak in without much issue. After getting a feel for her new campmates she starts to take them out. Will anyone pass Angela’s idea of a “good” camper should be and live to see morning?

This is where I normally would say you have to watch the movie to find out, but not this time. I had some fun with Sleepaway Camp part II, but the 3rd installment just isn’t that good. Both movies were shot back to back with the same director and crew. It seems to me that this was a mistake because I have the impression they only had enough money and material for one movie. Teenage Wasteland is missing what the previous installment had going for it. The pacing is off, the Angela character doesn’t have the same snappy one-liners, and most disappointing the kills are lame.

After the movie opens up with Angela running down her victim with a garbage truck (no one notices this on a busy street?) we head to camp. After a really dumb bit with a reporter getting her pipes cleaned the movie spends way too long introducing us to the characters. None of them are interesting and all of them are annoyingly stereotypical. Now if I had some mayhem and murders to watch during this I could deal and still have fun, but it isn’t until later that Angela starts collecting her body count. To me this is a cast of bad writing like they didn’t know what they wanted to do. And since I’m speaking of bad writing I’ll mention another of my gripes with Teenage Wasteland. One of the highlights of part II were the funny lines Angela had after most of the kills. Pamela Springsteen is so good in that movie, but here she is wasted. The lines aren’t funny and the character isn’t as entertaining.

Time to talk some special effects. A slasher movie, even one being played for laughs, is only as good as it’s kills. In the special features about this movie they mention that the kills were supposed to be more elaborate then what they actually filmed. But because they had money issues they had to scale them back. This means instead of interesting kills we keep seeing Angela hit people with a wooden stick in awkward and unconvincing on screen kills. But at least those are on screen, because many of the rest occur off screen. If they had the money to shoot what they said they wanted to do then this movie might have worked better. What they did shoot is lame.

Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland is a victim of lack of money and lack of ideas. This one is only for those fans that have the need to see all entries into this franchise or all the slasher movies of the ‘80s. Everyone else should skip it.

1 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer