It looks like Angela just can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to enjoying her time at camp. First, she’s bullied, made fun of and exposed for the whole world to see and then she grows up, gets picked on some more and has to deal with a bunch of rowdy teens. She thought the third time would be the charm, but sadly, you put a bunch of teenagers (or in this movie’s case, late twenty-year-olds) in the woods, with nothing but fornication to pass the time, you know things aren’t going to turn out exactly how Angela envisioned things. I guess there is only one thing to do and that’s to dispatch all the bad ones in gruesome manners and that my folks is exactly what Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland is all about, killing folks. Oh and a good helping of boobs as well. You can’t forget the boobs and it’s boobs in high definition as well thanks to Scream Factory and their Collector’s Edition release, which is chock-full of features. Man, it’s good to a be a happy camper these days, but just make sure you are a nice camper, one who doesn’t fornicate, take drugs or strangely enough, be a cheerleader, or else Angela will get you! Let’s see if we can be really good and get through this review alive…
PRODUCT INFORMATION
DISCS: 1 Blu-ray, 1 DVD
RUN-TIME: 80 min
ASPECT RATIO: 1.78:1
RESOLUTION: 1080p
AUDIO: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
SUBTITLES: English
REGION: A/1
RATING: R
PRODUCTION DATE: 1989
RELEASE DATE: June 9th, 2015
PLOT SUMMARY
Welcome to Camp New Horizons, where an autumn retreat brings together a group of obnoxious rich kids and surly city thugs for an “experiment in sharing.” Under new inept management, this is the ideal setting for notorious psychopath Angela Baker (Pamela Springsteen, Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers) to join the camp and do what she does best – eliminating “immoral” teenagers with everything from a knife to a lawnmower. Michael J. Pollard (House of 1000 Corpses, Bonnie & Clyde), Tracy Griffith (Fear City, The First Power) and Jill Terashita (Night of the Demons) co-star in this third installment of the cult series.
MOVIE
As we already know, Angela survived the events of Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers and a year has passed since that slaughter at Camp Rolling Hills, which has now been renamed Camp New Horizons. Instead of a camp for kids and teenagers, we have a group of middle-class teens and higher class teens mixing together and trying to bond. Breaking boundaries left, right and centre is what this camp is all about. Angela, after assuming the role of a girl named Maria, who didn’t quite make it out of the beginning of the movie alive, but don’t worry, we got to see her tiny boobs (milkshake!), mixes in with the kids and hopes to have a happy camping trip. Of course, Angela is destined to never have one, as she quickly gets to work on dispatching any of the bad kids and trust me, they are even more troublesome in this movie than they were in the second one. Angela has a lot of work ahead of her and to make things worse, one of the counsellors is the father/cop of a kid who was murdered in the second movie. Things just got real!
Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland was shot right after the second one, with only a weekend in between the two. When you put that into perspective, it really goes to show you how great a job everyone did, with what little time and money they had. The third movie might be missing a little bit of charm of the second, but that doesn’t mean that it’s in any way worse. In fact, I rather enjoyed the heck out the third one and trust me, the movie waste no time in getting down and dirty with the killings. Although, you will notice that the murders in this movie are extremely light on the gore, as the MPAA had an even harder time letting things go and a lot of stuff was cut. Thankfully, we get to see some of that gore (albeit light gore) in the special features, which I will talk about soon.
Pamela Springsteen is still having a blast playing the role of Angela and this time around she has quite a few one-liners, with my favourite involving the inevitability of boobs sagging. I honestly can’t see anyone else playing this role and I really wish we would’ve got more sequels, but alas, we have to live with these ones (I haven’t seen the fourth, Return to Sleepaway Camp, which stars the original Angela, Felissa Rose.) Everyone else involved is pretty much you standard slasher fare, with the only other standout being the super weird Michael J. Pollard, who plays a dirty old man, who somehow gets to hook up with the super hot chick. I love it!
BLU-RAY
If you read my review for Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers, you can expect the same kind of quality with this Blu-ray release as well. The picture and audio are top-notch when compared to the other releases of these movies. I did notice some dirt and scratches during one scene in particular where Angela is taking out the trash and by trash, I literally mean trash. It wasn’t super bad or anything, but it was noticeable enough for me to remember it for this awesome review.
Special features are just that, pretty damn special. You got Part II of A Tale Of Two Sequels, which runs roughly 25 minutes and features a ton of interviews with Director Michael A. Simpson, Cinematographer Bill Mills, Actors Mark Oliver and Kim Wall and more. I felt it wasn’t as in-depth as Part I for the second movie, but there was still a lot of neat information. There is also some behind the scenes, which is only 8 minutes long and is about the opening shot, with commentary by Director Michael A. Simpson. The biggest thing people will get a kick out of is the workprint of the longer cut of the movie, which is a rough, very rough VHS quality look at the movie. There is no music and some scenes are missing, so don’t expect to sit down and watch the movie this way. This is mainly included so you can see extended scenes and gore, which Scream Factory was nice enough to isolate into another feature, which runs 18 minutes and includes all the death scenes. I’ll be honest, besides a few kills here and there, the gore is pretty tame compared to nowadays and I was a little disappointed, as I thought they would be gorier. Rounding everything out is a Home Video Trailer for the movie, which spoils the entire damn thing, a short film titled “Tony Lives!”, which is a fake interview with Tony (Mark Oliver), a Still Gallery and audio commentary with Director Michael A. Simpson and Writer Fritz Gordon. Lots of goodies to consume.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES
- Audio Commentary With Director Michael A. Simpson And Writer Fritz Gordon
- A Tale Of Two Sequels – Part Two Featuring New Interviews With Director Michael A. Simpson, Cinematographer Bill Mills, Actors Mark Oliver And Kim Wall And More…
- Behind-The-Scenes Footage With Commentary By Michael A. Simpson
- Workprint Of The Longer Cut (From VHS)
- Deleted Scenes Featuring Additional Gore Footage (Taken From The Workprint)
- Home Video Promotional Trailer
- Still Gallery
VERDICT
Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland is not as good as Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers, plain and simple. Even the crew knew this one wouldn’t be as good, as they spent more time on the second one, but when you factor in time, budget and the general plot of the movie, you can’t fault the film for being cheesy. It’s still a great time, which is full of kills, boobies and Angela having a blast slaughtering people. It’s a brainless romp through the woods and Scream Factory makes that trip worthwhile with an awesome Blu-ray release. This is one disc worth being raised up the flagpole.
RATING
