Sleepaway Camp 3

Sleepaway Camp 3 :Teenage Wasteland (1989)

Dir:Michael A.Simpson

IMDB Rating: 4.8 out of 10

 Ah yes, It's a year later and since the video cover for part 2 garnered much attention among video rental store rack it is obviously time to return to camp, But how will Angela manage to make her way to camp this time? Well you shoehorn her in that's how. As all horror fans know usually around part 3 a series begins to falter and loose it's fan base. So does Sleepaway Camp stray from the pack or does it fall victim to the same ol' same ol'? Well let's check it out and make our conclusions.

           One year has passed since the murders at Camp Rolling Hills and the property has been re-branded as a social experiment camp and given a new name of Camp New horizons.Where now we can fit every type of stereotype into one film as opposed to just the suburban brand and rich kids. The film opens with a trashy looking young woman named Mary as she is preparing for her summer camp experience, Sadly for her Angela has other plans and wishes to revisit her old stomping grounds, So Angela throws her in a dumpster and with a wig magically becomes Mary....As Angela arrives at the camp she quickly gets to work as a snotty reporter is presenting a story for the news about the camp's unique new experiment as kids from all walks of life are brought to the place to learn about their differences and become more accepting of one another. After the news anchor reports she is looking to score some coke , which Angela is more than happy to provide. However the Coke is bunk and she dies of course. Then we meet the group of kids, which as I said are running the gambit of horror film stereotypes as we of course The traditional jock,Nerd,Slut,Snob and now we get the latin heart throb thug, The Asian rebel girl and The black kid equipt with boombox and that damned rap music.....

Things pick up quick as the teens are split up into groups of 3 with separate counselors to partake in some trust exercises.Angela of course makes short work of her group after catching the slutty girl of the group having sex with the old man counselor. After taking out the few kids in her group , she heads to another and gets stuck doing a trust exercise with the snobby girl who is also a horrible racist. While walking with blindfolds she ties Cindy (Snob) to a flag pole and crushes her skull in a relatively unique kill. Upon returning to camp, Angela is tied to Bobby ,who is a pervert and wanna be politician. After collecting fish for dinner Angela leads her counselor to a shed where she buries the woman to er head in garbage before mowing her down.Meanwhile at the third group we see that the "Good Girl"Marsha is beginning to take a liking to the dangerous Latin thug Tony. We also get some quick insight to the fact that the third counselor Barney is the father of one of Angela's victims from the previous film.Angela continues to take out her fellow campers much less discreetly than usual as if she wants to get caught. I have to say though during her slaughter of the second group , there is a scene I love, Where she hands the "Hip Hop Roughian" a cassette which she is rapping on before she nails him to death with tent spikes. After Angela meets up with the pervy Bobby and rips his arms off in a twist on BDSM , she heads to the third group the following morning.

Angela completely gives up her cover when she shows Marsha the body of one of the fallen counselors. At this point the Father of one of Angela's victims from last year faces off with the psycho camper. Strangely this meeting is cut short when Angela simply shoots him dead.After a short chase Angela manages to capture the three remaining campers and presents them with yet another trust game but this one is deadly. The group is lead to Angela's cabin where she is storing her victims and they must find Marsha who is being held captive. Tony manages to find her but the other remaining campers are killed in the process. Angela feels giving and leaves Tony and Marsha to live but they want revenge. This leads us into the final fight where Marsha puts the knife to Angela appearing to have killed her. Marsha reveals she is not the nice girl she appears as she tells Tony she has a boyfriend and was just looking for a fling, which is a interesting take on the survivor girl. All appears well as Angela is carted off in an ambulance where her vital signs show her still alive and the cop and paramedic decide to kill her, Angela however is awake and kills the two as the ambulance rides off with her alive in the back , leaving room for yet another sequel....One that did not come til' over ten years or more later and really killed the series for good with it's sheer awfulness.

It took me awhile to get to this review because quite honestly , I just didn't feel like writing it. I love this series but the third installment is just kinda blah....It really adds nothing to the series , it lacks the gore and the charm of the first sequel and with the exception of a few pretty cool and fun scenes , this one is just forgettable. The Flag Pole, The Lawn mower and of course the Rap scenes are really the films only highlights and only one of those scenes sets Angela apart from all the other slashers out there. Sadly this film is where the series began to take it's turn for the worse.There was a planned part 4 entitled The Survivor and the premise sounded pretty cool as it was a play on the then just blossoming craze of reality T.V. however the film was never finished and we had too wait nearly 20 years for this series to resurface with Return To Sleepaway Camp with Felissa Rose returning as Angela which was cool but the film was epic trash and completely killed the series altogether. Sadly Sleepaway Camp will never get to the cult status of Friday The 13th or any of the other slasher icons due to the laziness of this script and the follow up several years later. This is truly sad being that the first film had such an amazing and disturbing ending and Pamela Springstein brought some real charm to the character in the sequels, However this one just falls flat and I hate to say that honestly.


Gore:4
Nudity:5
Story:4
Characters:4
Fun Factor:5
Overall: 4.5 out of 10