Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland

R 5
1989 1 hr 19 min Horror , Comedy

Psychotic Angela is itching to do what she does best: slaughter dozens of teenage campers. As luck would have it, the previous site of her murders has been renamed and converted into an experimental summer camp meant to bring together privileged and lower-class teens. On the day the youths are boarding the buses to camp, Angela runs over a potential camper with a garbage truck and assumes her identity. Once she has infiltrated the camp, the real terror begins.

  • Cast:
    Pamela Springsteen , Tracy Griffith , Michael J. Pollard , Kyle Holman , Sandra Dorsey , Kim Wall , Haynes Brooke

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Reviews

StunnaKrypto
1989/08/04

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

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Abbigail Bush
1989/08/05

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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Verity Robins
1989/08/06

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

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Kinley
1989/08/07

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

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TheBlueHairedLawyer
1989/08/08

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).

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Bonehead-XL
1989/08/09

"Sleepaway Camp III" was shot back to back with "Sleepaway Camp II" and released straight to video a year later. As a money saving measure, both movies were shot on the same sets. The movie barely attempts to disguise this and, instead, thinks of a clever way to write around it. A pair of greedy, would-be entrepreneurs have bought Camp Rolling Hills, two years after Angela's massacre. They have rebuilt the camp into Camp New Horizon, where teens of rich families can mingle with poor, troubled youths. Angela returns to the scene of the crime, assuming a new identity, before the badly behaved tenants force her to kill again. "Sleepaway Camp III" is cheap but at least it's creatively cheap."Sleepaway Camp II" was a fairly subtle satire of eighties pop culture, eviscerating the icons of the day while gently poking fun at the rules of the slasher subgenre. Part three, meanwhile, attempts a muddled sociological message. The rich kids at Camp Rolling Hill are rotten to the core, displaying greedy, selfish behavior. The kids from the ghetto, meanwhile, are violent and unintelligent. Even the owners of the camp, winkingly named Herman and Lily, are corrupt. Herman attempts to screw his teenage tenants while Lily is a lay-about that uses the campers as a private workforce. Angela is a force of weird justice, slicing through both social stratas, deeming all unworthy.Instead of naming the victims after the Brat Pack, Michael Simpson and Fritz Gordon name the fodder after "Brady Bunch" and "West Side Story" characters. The flick intentionally recalls "West Side" with its two survivors. Marcia is from the nice side of the tracks. She strikes up a romance with Tony, a Hispanic kid from such a town that he considers being a gang member no big deal. Their attraction isn't love. Both characters admit they're just horny. Yet their relationship is the film's best implication that there is hope for the future, that different social groups can find a peaceful middle ground.Which brings us to the increasingly peculiar character of Angela. In part two, an incongruent perkiness separated Angela from the slasher pack while a barely glimpsed inner-sadness made her a deeper character. In part three, Angela is more low-key. She pretends to be a nasty kid in order to make it into the camp. Amusingly, Angela is as bad at pretending to be a street kid as you'd expect, especially when she enthusiastically proclaims her love for the Happy Campers song. In the last flick, Angela at killed those that violated her personal moral code. There's elements of that here too. However, Angela seems to be killing this time mostly because her victims aren't nice. When dropping a rich brat from a flagpole, she calls her a "fornicator." But only after criticizing her for being a cheerleader and racist first. Angela has become bitter. As the film makes obvious, it's from heartbreak. While exploring the room that used to be the main cabin, Angela flashes back to the previous film. In an extended scene, she expresses how important camp is, how it's about being accepted for who she is. No wonder she's sad and angry. The world has continuously disappointed her.While it tries, "Sleepaway Camp III" ultimately feels like the quickie sequel it is. While the cast is about the same size, the characters are nowhere near as developed. The bad kids are designated a stereotypic behavior. Riff blares his ghetto blaster. Cindy is an entitled rich witch. Snowboy spray-paints. Peter likes firecrackers. Ahab is a tough girl. Jan sleeps around. George is the football star that is secretly into kinky sex, probably the funniest of the lot, especially when he tries to put the moves on Angela. Some of the kids don't even get that much, as Greg and Anita are without any defining features. That the movie was written quickly is evident in its plot construction. After a somewhat sluggish first hour, where Angela separates teens from the group as to kill them, she spends the last half-hour cleaving through the remaining cast. Fritz Gordon's previous script transcended the time limit but it's clear the deadline got to him on this one.Part II also featured some creative, graphic kills. Unfortunately, the MPAA came down hard on "Teenage Wasteland." What Angela does to her victims can't compare to what the censors did to the death scenes. Before a head smashes on impact or a face is chopped up in a mower, the camera abruptly cuts away. A decapitation is neutered when the punch line, Angela kicking the head, is cut out. A Jeep tears arms off which is awkwardly cropped out of frame. Far too many of the death scenes are Angela hitting her victim with sticks, which is not the most cinematic violence. At least the movie doesn't skimp on the T&A, as the audience is greeted to nine spectacular breasts. (Even if the sole sex scenes features Michael J. Pollard. Did I mention Michael J. Pollard? He's in this.) The third film ends on an ambiguous note, one that ultimately defines the film. As Marcia tries to escape, Angela is fatally wounded. While driven off in an ambulance, she raises long enough to kill the paramedic and cop. When the driver asks what's going on, Angela says she's "taking care of business," a slight reservation in her voice. Killing bad people in a world destined to disappoint her is Angeal's job now. She doesn't take much joy in it. Though I love Pamela Springsteen, her delivery here is tired, especially the hilarious sleepy rap she performs. The whole movie is tired. It's not as funny or satisfying as the previous sequel. However, I'll enjoy any movie that has Pam stirring up trouble. Given more time, this probably would have been a classic on the level of part two. As it is, it's still entertaining.

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HumanoidOfFlesh
1989/08/10

Angela murders some New York City girl and steals her identity in order to attend Camp New Horizons where spoiled rich kids are mixed up with some of the underprivileged for some bizarre 'experiment in sharing'.It's a perfect ground for Angela to kill as many teenagers as she can."Sleepaway Camp III:Teenage Wasteland" is extremely fun slasher comedy with some very entertaining characters and pretty high body count.The killings including the lawnmower and the flagpole deaths are violent and creative.Several characters for example Michael J.Pollard are truly weird and memorable.If you enjoyed "Sleepaway Camp" and "Sleepaway Camp II:Unhappy Campers" you can't go wrong with this silly but enjoyable kill fest.8 slashed teens out of 10.

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zombiefan89
1989/08/11

Angela is FAR different from the shy insecure boy from the first movie. Yes, she's a he, it's revealed in the first one so it's technically not a spoiler for the third one. He has a very sarcastic and quirky sense of humor, however dark and twisted it may be. He delights in killing and seizes opprotunities that seemed rather forced at times. Those trust games and that reporter asking for cocaine were very over the top. This is quite possibly the worst "horror" movie ever made, but that's because...it's a comedy!! I honestly had no idea about that going in. I had just watched the first one, and I hadn't seen the second one yet. Also, it's really not that graphic compared to the first one! Yes, there's blood, but most of the kills are devoid of any real violence. The camera cuts away at the last second, or the attacks seem too "cute" to actually be fatal, like the way he kills one of the counselors by whacking him with stick, which didn't seem to really hurt him at first. It reminded me of that black woman from Tom and Jerry who would beat Tom with a broom. Angela always has some wise crack about every situation, too. There's no real suspense to be had in this movie. you know exactly who Angela is going to kill and in what order. Lines like "Is that all for a good bye? You might never see me again!" give everything away. You know who the killer is the whole movie, unlike in the first one. Accpeting the fact that this is a comedy, I have to give it 10 stars! I laughed at every kill! Pamela Springsteen is a hilarious psychopath, and almost all of the characters are hatable enough, you're glad when they die. Oh, and I love the way they found that Jason mask in the lake, that was priceless!

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