SLEEPAWAY CAMP III: TEENAGE WASTELAND (1989)

After running over and killing a teenage girl with a garbage truck in front of like 50 witnesses (I'm including the extremely visible camera crew in this number), Angela steals the dead teens identity and returns to the same camp where she massacred all those people the year before.  That doesn't even make sense, but whatever.  So now she (and her shitty new hair style) are back at camp and she immediately starts killing everybody.  Firecracker to the face, arms ripped off, needle to the eye, axe to chest, lawnmower to head, blah, blah, blah.  Very little is actually shown on screen, but it doesn't even matter since the whole thing is a bowl of fuck.

Average acting, camera crew visible (twice!), horrible dialogue, Angela rapping, the same Flotsam and Jetsam album cover that was shown in Part 2, below average special effects, some nice topless moments (including Jill Terashita from the original NIGHT OF THE DEMONS!), ridiculous story that is pretty much just a series of kill scenes strung together with some boring talking scenes tossed in to pad the runtime (They even said in the extras that the lame "dream sequence" full of flashbacks was added because they were contractually obligated to turn in a 80+ minute movie and they only had 78 minutes!)

The best part about SLEEPAWAY CAMP III: TEENAGE WASTELAND is when I hit "eject" on my remote control.  Skip this turd and skip Part 2 also.  The original is a wonderful, off-kilter 80's slasher classic, but these two sequels both blow dead dogs.

Part 1 - Sleepaway Camp (1983)
Part 2 - Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988)

Cast photo

SLEEPAWAY CAMP II: UNHAPPY CAMPERS (1988)

Fucking lame.

After the simple brilliance of the first film, the SLEEPAWAY CAMP series takes a wet, dripping dookie all over itself with this pathetically unfunny comedy sequel.  It was so unfunny, in fact, that it took me like a hour to even realize that it was a comedy!

Taking place a few years after the original massacre, Angela is now fully transferred over to being a woman (thanks to a sex change operation).  Also, two years of shock therapy have left her fully cured.  Could have fooled me though, because she's taking her job as a camp counselor waaaay too seriously.  (Just a side track here for a moment, but wouldn't her parole officer or doctors or whatever probably have a issue with her getting a job as a camp counselor...seeing as she just recently killed around thirty people at another summer camp?)  It seems Angela has a severe problem with people she perceives as sinful.  Smoke weed...that's a murderin'.  Premarital sex...that's a murderin'.  Ask questions about all the other campers that have been gettin' murderin'ed...that's a murderin'.

That sounds promising, but trust me, it's not.  Crap special effects, annoying acting by the annoying main character, weak topless scenes, illogical story, stupid ending, goofy kills.  The only thing I found interesting was the hijinks of the campers, but unfortunately goddamn Angela kept killing everybody right as things were getting fun!

Skip it with a vengeance and never look back.  Watch THE BURNING again instead.

Part 1 - Sleepaway Camp (1983)
Part 3 - Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989)

SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983)

Billy: "Eat shit and die, Ricky!"
Ricky: "Eat shit and live, Bill."

Awwww yeah, summer's here again at Camp Arawak!  You know what that means...volleyball, softball, camping, swimming and murder!!! Who could the murderer be? The guy with the really short shorts? The other guy with the really short shorts?  The hairy guy with the short shorts and the half shirt? The slutty chick with the shorts pulled up to her tits? The child-molesting cook? The counselor-molesting camp owner?  The kid with the Blue Oyster Cult t-shirt? The guy with the cobra iron-on shirt?  The cop with the glued-on mustache?  The kid in the Asia shirt? There's a ton of suspects, but you'd have to be an idiot to not figure out who the killer is within the first 20 minutes. That doesn't take away from the fun though, because SLEEPAWAY CAMP is pure 80's cheese.  It's awesome! Yeah, it's a horror movie, but for whatever reason there's just a great sense of light-heartedness surrounding the whole thing.  I love this movie.

SLEEPAWAY CAMP is a blast from beginning to end and probably the closest thing the world will ever see as to what might have happened if John Waters had jumped on the camp slasher bandwagon back in the early 80's.  Buckets of laughs, very little blood, zero gore, disturbing nudity, the largest cooking pot I've ever seen, water balloon fight on a slanted roof, an awesome softball game, the world's fakest looking mustache, a big cowboy hat, a Tasmanian Devil t-shirt, campy dialogue that I love to quote.  Check it out! If you don't like it, then you're probably taking life too seriously.

Now...if you'll excuse me, I have to go meet somebody at the waterfront after the social.

Part 2 - Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988)
Part 3 - Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989)