Day 25: Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989)




Sleepaway Camp III:  Teenage Wasteland is another one of those so bad it's good late 80's horror slashers.  It features the return of everyone's favorite transexual psychopath Angela Baker, played by Pamela Springsteen (yep, Bruce Springsteen's sister).  This movie is like a dumpster fire.  You know it's not good but you just can't turn away from it.  No one in the production seems to take it too seriously, and there's a lot of jokes scattered throughout.  There's even references to Jason Voorhees and the Friday the 13th series.  What I really like about this one is the comedy.  While billed as a horror, there's far more comedy than legit horror.  It's more about the gore and kills than anything actually scary.  And the gore and kills are pretty damn funny.  Angela uses axes, a truck, a firecracker, a lawn mower and even a tree branch to dispatch this group of asshole campers.  In fact, the entire time, you're rooting for Angela because the people assembled at the camp are a group of the most annoying stereotypes the late 80's could offer up.  You want to see these folks wiped out.  The plot involves the camp being reopened for an experiment in sharing by bringing together inner city kids with rich kids and showing them that they're all the same.  It succeeds in that.  They do end up all the same.  Dead.  This is a ridiculously fun and stupid slasher that epitomizes everything that you think of when you think of late 80's slasher films.  The gore, the kills, the nudity, the stupidity.  It's all here.  And it's fun dammit.  While the original actually had an intriguing twist, this one just plays for laughs.  And it's definitely a good time.  We also can't forget about that rockin' hair metal soundtrack!


Our Rating:  3/5


Comments