DVD Artwork
To tell the truth I never really saw the point of a first sequel to Sleepaway Camp, as the first movie wasn’t that good to start with, but I guess they saw dollar signs as is the case with many movies.
Part 2 must have made a little money as we now get subjected to a third in the series. Is it necessary? Probably not. Was it fun? Not really. What we get is much more of the same with a plot so thin that you’d get more meat on a supermodel calender.
I suppose I better tell you what this one is all about, not that there is much to say really, being as this is as predictable as you might expect it to be.
The movie kicks off with a girl getting ready to go away to summer camp. No sooner has she left the front door when she is chased down the road by a garbage truck, forced into an alley and mowed down. Who on Earth could be driving the truck? Angela Baxter (Pamela Springsteen) of course, back for more carnage.
Quite how she got her hands on a garbage truck if beyond me, but the reason behind it was so that she could take the girls place at the summer camp that she was on her way to. Oh the evil mind of a psychopath!
The camp is the same one as part 2, although now it is called Camp New Horizons, and the campers are all there on a social experiment. Half are so-called underprivileged kids, the other half are basically rich kids. We have all the stereotypes here; gang members, cheerleaders, nerds. All with victim scribbled across their heads.
On arrival at the camp we are introduced to everyone through the aid of a news crew that are covering the story. They also conveniently bring up the subject of the murders from the second movie that happened only a year before.
I am surprised that the camp could re-open so soon, especially as Angela was never caught, but I’ll roll with it just for the sake of the movie.
The usual shenanigans soon follow. The kids all get split up into three groups and then, along with a counselor, head off into the woods for a few days camping, fishing and games. Oh and dying of course.
Nothing surprising happens at all during this movie. The most surprising thing is probably the counselors at the camp. Aside from one being a cop, the other two are the most ridiculous choices I have ever seen. They are a middle-aged married couple who seemingly don’t have any connection with this planet at all. He is a dirty old bastard that wants nothing more than to sleep with the campers, whereas the woman is a lazy cow that just sits around and does nothing. Quite how they managed to run a camp is beyond me.
Everything about this movie is poor, not horrendous, just poor. The acting is the usual substandard crap that we have all come to expect in slasher flicks. Some characters, such as the two aforementioned counselors do raise an occasional chuckle, and Pamela Springsteen seems to be having fun, even if she is running on auto-pilot.
You might hope that the death scenes would improve matters, unfortunately they don’t, more of a case of trying to come up with some new ideas only to come up short. A couple were fairly well done, however not enough to satisfy me. A little blood here and there wouldn’t have gone amiss either. This is after all supposed to be a slasher flick, and it is nowhere near the quality of such bloodless movies such as Halloween. Throw some blood on the screen guys, at least then you could have attempted to draw attention away from the movie’s other shortcomings.
Teenage Wasteland is by far the weakest of the three movies. The first movie had a great ending, the sequel was just plain stupid fun but this one was the movie equivalent of a paper cut; hurts for a short while, relatively bloodless and soon forgotten about.
The extras on this disc reflect the movie to a certain degree, they had potential but fall flat, ending in disappointment.
Okay, so there is a commentary, oh joy that means sitting through the movie again. There is an 8 minute behind the scenes segment that is not at all interesting. It shows a little about the opening garbage truck scene and not too much else. We also have some deleted “gore” scenes. Why not put them back into the damn movie? Not that they seemed to be all that different from what was in the movie itself, maybe an extra whack with a piece of wood here or a little more blood there, pretty pointless really.
Overall I was very disappointed with Teenage Wasteland. I was hoping for more of the humor of Unhappy Campers but didn’t get it at all.
If I was to recommend this I would suggest getting hold of the boxed set as that is probably better value, and it might look a little cooler in your collection.
