Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989)

Best movie ever!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Teenage Wasteland certainly isn't as good as the first Sleepaway Camp, but it still has a lot to offer. Pamela Springsteen is back from the second Sleepaway Camp film and is just as funny and disturbing in her role, playing the mass killer Angela Baker as she ends up in yet another adventure, pretending to be one of her murder victims at Camp New Horizons.Camp New Horizons, "an experiment in sharing" as the elderly pair of camp counselors like to call it, is a summer camp where snobby suburb teens are residing in groups with tough city kids. Angela quickly starts her business, beginning with murdering the pervy old camp counselor Herman while he makes love with one of the teenage campers. As the body count builds up, Angela comes face to face with an old enemy, the cop who arrested her back in '83, officer Barney Whitmore.You can definitely see the era this was made in while watching it, unlike in the previous two. Angela's killings are unpredictable though, from giving a news reporter some highly corrosive Ajax cleaning powder and telling her it's cocaine to snort, to tying a snotty racist girl to a flagpole and dropping her to the ground. It's hard though to see Angela as the antagonist in this one, since she only kills the sleazy, bigoted and annoying people (save for the cop). The acting was great, the soundtrack was decent enough, and Teenage Wasteland is definitely a great addition to the Sleepaway Camp series.(One of the characters was named SnowBoy though, which I'll never understand).

Angela (Pamela Springsteen) is back, in the form of an angry inner-city camper on the hunt for blood. Camp New Horizons, on the recycled grounds of the former murders (Camp Rolling Hills), intends to pair high class teens with underclass counterparts.Despite being filmed back to back with part two, it appears they cared even less about this one... the deaths are cheesy, but at least they somehow were able to convince Michael Pollard to make an appearance -- giving it some sort of star power that was hardly deserved.Much like part two with the Brat pack references, characters this time are named after Brady Bunch members and "West Side Story" characters. And much like part two's use of famous siblings (Pamela Springsteen and Renee Estevez), this time we have Tracy Griffith (Melanie's sister). The film was shot in under three weeks, with only a weekend of prep time after wrapping part two. More preparation would probably have helped.Fans of the original may like this, or maybe not... the style is totally different, the actress is different, and the original twist no longer matters. In fact, it is not even clear what the motive is anymore (apparently none).As with Part Two, Scream Factory offers this film a deluxe treatment with audio commentary, retrospective documentary, deleted gore footage and more in both Blu-ray and DVD thanks to the combo pack.

Angela returns again to another stupid and pointless sequel, she returns yet again to the camp where she murdered everyone only this time under a new name Maria and a new look, but then her murderous instinct's kick in and she starts killing again.Pamela Springsteen returns once again in this silly and stupid sequel as Angela Baker (originally played by Felissa Rose). Well, Sleepaway Camp 3 is basically Sleepaway Camp 2 all over again but with less campers and a more good-looking Pamela Springsteen and once again the comedy seems to be more in focus than the horror. Don't you just hate when that happens to originally good horror flicks? Angela's one-liners are stupid and never deliver so much as a giggle.The acting is just as bad as the acting in the second movie and it almost feels as if they shot this directly after wrapping up production on the second movie since it's even the same director.Sleepaway Camp III is a dull and stupid slasher that I don't get why slasher fans like it, the killings this time round are quite dull, but the one Angela placing a rap tape in the tape player of her next victim was enjoyable and quite funny.All in all awful slasher that only gets a 3 because of the inventive rap sceme murder

Tongue-in-cheek slasher spoof, made back-to-back with the previous installment, Unhappy Campers, from director Michael A Simpson and writer Fritz Gordon, has serial killing transsexual Angela Baker(Pamela Springsteen)assuming the identity of Maria, a street kid she plows through with a garbage truck, so she can infiltrate a new Summer Camp near where she was once counselor. The camp is an experiment where underprivileged and rich youth join together in a unified setting proving that "we all can get along" no matter what kind of family and locale we come from. It goes horribly wrong when Angela, under wig, returns to her "Angel of Death" role murdering those she considers morally corrupt. Three wilderness groups are formed with the various youth camps spreading out with a counselor assigned with Angela wiping out one set of victims at a time, moving to the next one when she's finished. Before you know it, there are few left to slaughter.Cute red-head Tracy Griffith(Skeeter;The Final Power)as a suburban band student, and potential boy-toy, East LA Latino "thug-with-a-heart-o-gold", Tony(Mark Oliver) soon find themselves baring witness to Angela's rampage perhaps doomed to the same fate. Kooky B-movie character actor Michael J Pollard has a funny role as one of the founding counselors, with a Playboy bunny belt buckle, who tries landing a wealthy "skank" in a tent, actually succeeding before Angela corners him for execution, sickened at his fornication. Cliff Brand is a cop, Barney Whitmore whose son was beheaded by Angela, the third counselor hoping to someday catch and kill the murderess responsible. Sandra Dorsey is lazy counselor Lily who has her campers performing menial tasks for her such as taking away the trash and bringing her bug spray. Her demise, through the use of a lawnmower, is rather unique. The other victims are the same clichés paraded out for Angela to dispatch in one way or another. Those who either rent or purchase the DVD should check out the raw gore footage included in the special features. While most of them pretty remain intact within the finished product, there's a beheading from Angela's ax(..showing hands still moving with gushing blood flowing)and a nasty aftermath of a victim hoisted by Angela up a flag pole falling head-first splatting to the ground, that are rather memorable. While the sequels to the franchise have a fervent cult following(..Angela using various methods to destroy human lives, following up each murder with a type of witty/witless one-liner)who embrace them as cheesy 80's slasher flicks, I really find them rather joy-less exercises, with most of the murders cheap and clumsy. They are really no different than those repeated Friday the 13th sequels, with Angela assuming Voorhies' role, with the exception of her being a chick and alive. The idea that Angela can kill so many without being discovered is a stretch, to say the least, especially with all the screaming. And, while many love the warped humor Angela provides, this sequel even strains to deliver in that category, giving us something to smirk at here and there because most of the characters are developed for us to despise so that we can giggle when she destroys them in *creative* ways. One victim has his arms removed by a rope tied to a jeep Angela drives. An ignited fire-cracker is used on a practical joker's face. Angela uses a stick to pummel victims across the head. One is shot several times by a gun into the chest. Tent spikes are hammered into a victim's hand and head. But, even though they sound gruesome, director Simpson shies away from displaying the gory goods for the audience clamoring for such violence.