"I Shot Him Six Times!" or Halloween II (1981)

In this era of The Horror Remake, it's sometimes easy to forget that there was once a time before Rob Zombie was taking giant dumps all over an iconic baddie like Michael Myers. But there was indeed a time in history when we weren't supposed to feel sorry for Michael because his mom was a stripper and nobody took him trick or treating as a child. No, this old school Michael put on his William Shatner mask and killed just because he is eeeeviiiil, and that's what made him scary.

In 1978, John Carpenter created Halloween, and audiences were scared shitless, and he saw that it was good. But lo, Halloween suffered from the debilitating disease of No-Sequel-Itis. In the early 80s, no doubt inspired by the swimming pools full of money that Friday The 13th and its first sequel had brought home, the executive bigwigs over at Universal were like "We should totally get in on this shit." And so, in 1981, Halloween II was born.

I find it incredibly delicious to think that they hired somebody to add two words to the first movie's tagline and slap it on the poster there.

Halloween II picks up right where the first one left off, even backtracking a bit to show Laurie Strode's final showdown with Michael Myers and Dr. Samuel Loomis shooting him. Michael, of course, gets up completely unperturbed from the bullets that have just riddles his body. Because he is the very picture of eeeeeevil. And then we have opening credits.

Cut to Michael's POV as he watches Loomis bark at the police for a bit ("I shot him SIX TIMES!!!!!!!") and then stalks his way into the home of the Elrods, an elderly couple. Mrs. Elrod is preparing sandwiches and asks her husband, Harold, if he would enjoy mayonnaise on his. Harold, a product of the old days in which women were expected to always be able to read their man's mind when it comes to condiments, doesn't answer her. Mrs. E. spreads mayo on his sandwich anyway. God help her if he didn't want it. While she is distracted watching a conveniently placed newscast recapping the body count from the first movie, Michael sneaks into the kitchen and steals her sandwich makin' knife. Harold isn't going to be pleased. Mrs. E. finally reaches for the knife and her fingers brush a spot of blood that Michael left in his wake. She screams.

Meanwhile, next door, a teenage girl named Alice has heard Mrs. Elrod screaming and pokes her head outside to yell "Are you alright?" Receiving no answer, she assumes all is well and goes back to her phone conversation. Good going, Alice. What if the Elrods are laying in a pool of their own blood and can't answer you? They're not, but what if they were? I'm glad you aren't my neighbor.

Alice reports to her friend on the other end of the phone that she was just checking out some mysterious screaming. She deduces that Harold has perhaps grown weary of Mrs. E.'s nagging at him and has decided to start beating her. And Alice doesn't think that this is a problem. Alice's friend tells her about the babysitter massacre that just occurred down the street and Alice barely has time to react to this news when Michael sneaks up on her and jams his knife into her jugular. This makes absolutely no sense, as it is out of character for him. In the first movie, he basically only killed the people he had to in order to get to Laurie, yes? Thus, killing Alice serves no purpose whatsoever. But I digress. Body Count: 1

The po'po have gathered at the house where Laurie was babysitting earlier. She is being carted out on a stretcher, wearing the worst wig ever to disgrace the silver screen. For serious. Take a look at this handy comparison. On the left is Laurie in the first film. On the right is her in this movie, which takes place on the same night:

Wow. I have no words. So, moving on, Laurie is being transported to the hospital. Cut to the outside of the hospital. A woman is seen taking her kid inside because, I think, the kid has bitten into a razor blade that was in his candy. Cute. Also, WTF does that have to do with anything? It's really random. Laurie arrives at the hospital and begs the doctor not to put her to sleep. He does. He also opts not to have armed guards stationed by her door, even though she is being pursued by a knife wielding maniac who is still at large. Gotta love movie logic.

Loomis and Sheriff Brackett are driving around and come across somebody dressed exactly like Michael, mask and all. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this probably isn't our guy. Nevertheless, Loomis and Brackett start to chase this person down when all of a sudden, a police car comes zooming down the street at 1200 miles an hour and runs the guy over. The question of why a police car is going such an outrageous speed on a residential street where he knows children are trick or treating is best left unpondered, as it will give you a headache. The point is, Faux Michael is caught between the police car and a van, both of which are on fire. Another police officer comes running up to Sheriff Brackett and tells him that his daughter's body was among those found in the house of horrors. So, no time just yet to figure out the identity of Faux Michael.

After yet another scene with the woman and Junior Razorblade (seriously, this woman must have slept with the director or something, because this whole little subplot is extremely irrelevant), we cut to some hospital staffers watching a news report on the murders and tsk tsking. Jimmy, the young paramedic who attended to Laurie in the ambulance, comes into her room to flirt. Because the best time to flirt is always when the other person is recovering from multiple stab wounds. Laurie seems to be going for it though, so go figure.

Outside the murder house, Sheriff Brackett leaves Loomis on his own to go home and mourn his daughter's death. The police are fairly certain that the guy who just burned to death was Michael and are ready to be all "Yay, he's dead." Loomis, of course, knows better and tells them so. An officer asks what they should do then, and Loomis launches into a monologue as only he can, dramatically stating that Michael is eeeeeeeeviiiiil. Hey Loomis, how's about you shut up and just help the police, ok?

So, where exactly is Michael while all of this is going on? Here it is almost half an hour into this movie and we've barely seen him. Michael, it turns out, is strolling through the streets of Haddonfield as leisurely as a daisy blowing in the breeze on a summer's day. One would think that the townspeople would see him carrying his knife and, you know, start screaming and running for the hills, but they don't. Michael comes across a conveniently placed sign that says "Haddonfield Memorial Hospital," with an arrow pointing him in the right direction. Well isn't that just quaint and dandy. All that's missing is for him to tip his hat and stroll away humming Singin' In The Rain with a piece of straw in his mouth. He reaches his destination awfully quickly, as 20 seconds later we see him walking right past the security cameras and into the hospital. The guy who is supposed to be watching the monitors doesn't notice, of course, because he is a slasher cliche.

In the hospital break room, we are formally introduced to the victims we will watch die within the next hour, and a lame attempt at "character development" is done for each of them. A young nurse named Karen, who arrives to work late and who is presumably the hospital whore. Another nurse named Janet, who hates when people swear. A dude named Budd who swears just to piss Janet off. This is the extent of their characters. Jimmy stands in the corner brooding over Laurie. He decides to go and visit her long enough to tell her that it was Michael Myers who was after her. Laurie is shocked to hear this, as she assumed that damn Myers guy was locked away in an asylum.

Michael, meanwhile, is wandering around the hospital's basement. This hospital, by the way, is practically deserted except for our motley crew of staffers, Laurie, and some babies in the maternity ward. It is also dark as shit. I have been inside my share of hospitals at nighttime, and not only does every light stay ablaze, but never are there less than two dozen doctors/nurses walking around exchanging medical jargon with each other. Especially in the juvenile ward. Shenanigans, Halloween II. Shenanigans.

Well, anyway. Michael is wandering around undetected. Janet Who Doesn't Like Swears and Mr. Garrett, the security guard, have gone to investigate why the phones are mysteriously not working. Mr. Garrett figures out that someone has broken into the storage room and yells through his walky talky for Janet to get the police. Unfortunately, nobody ever taught Janet how to use a walky talky, because she only fiddles with it and complains "I don't know how to use this thing!" Seriously? Pressing a button and talking into the microphone is beyond your skill level?

As Janet struggles to understand the genius behind the walky talky, Mr. Garrett opens a door and 9 million boxes come crashing down on his head. I would love to think that Michael took the time to set that up, because it makes me giggle. Eventually, Mr. G. runs into Mikey, who has apparently grown bored with his butcher knife and has decided to do Garrett in with a hammer instead. Body Count: 2 Back in the dark, deserted hallway, Janet is still trying to figure out her walky talky. Thankfully, she gives up and stalks back to her post.

At the coroner's office, the identity of Faux Michael is still being determined. The coroner informs Loomis and the police that nothing will be certain until dental records and x-rays have been checked. Obviously, that just won't do. The decision is made to assume Michael is still alive, and the police head back out, where they come across an actual angry mob throwing rocks at the Myers homestead. All that's missing are pitchforks and torches. I'm not sure exactly what these people are hoping to accomplish, because Michael is clearly not in there. Maybe they're hoping that he will come home, see the damage done to the house, shake his head, sigh, and think "Why do I do it? Why do I alienate myself from the mainstream? I should change from now on."

Loomis launches into another variation of the only monologue about Michael that he knows (key phrases such as "eeeevil," "Halloween," and "not human" intermixed with various mumblings). This dramatic speech is interrupted by two Haddonfield teens, who say that they're awfully worried about their friend, Ben Traymer. Ben, you see, has not been seen since he left a Halloween party a few hours ago. And he had a "stupid mask" on. Gee, do you think Faux Michael could possibly be Ben? Me too. Loomis agrees with me. Let's see what's going on at the hospital in the meantime.

Nurse Karen has decided that the babies in the maternity ward can just fend for themselves, and she heads on down to the basement to have a soak in the therapeutic hot tub with Budd. Across the hall, Laurie is having a dream/flashback about learning, at the age of 10 or so, that she was adopted. She also remembers visiting Michael in the sanitarium, and presumably knowing that he is her brother. *Gasp!* Like you didn't know. Since Laurie is apparently aware that she is related to Mikey, it makes the earlier scene where she refers to him as "That kid who killed his sister" more than a little bit odd. But anyway. Karen and Budd are enjoying the hot tub downstairs. Naturally, Michael is lurking in the shadows and is wondering how on earth he is going to kill them. I mean, really. Butcher knives are soooo '78. No, this kill really needs to sparkle. Behold, my children....the hot tub temperature gauge:

Pay extra attention to the right side of the gauge that's colored all red. Although it may be hard to make out in that picture, there's no doubt as to what it says on my TV screen right now. It says "Scalding" and it goes up to way more than the posted limit of 100 degrees. What. The. Hell. I feel I must ask...why oh why does a hot tub for humans possess a setting for scalding? That seems like it would just be a major lawsuit waiting to happen, wouldn't you agree? Unless they make hard boiled eggs in there during off hours. Yes, that must be it. But back on topic, Michael is slowly turning the temperature up. Karen makes Budd get out to check the gauge, where he is quickly eliminated (Body Count: 3), as Michael hardly has the time to creatively kill the men. No, the best kills are always reserved for the ladies. He stalks up to Karen, who does the cliche thing of mistaking him for her boyfriend. Michael lets her suck on his fingers for a bit before grabbing her head and stuffing it right into the scalding water. Gore isn't skimped on here, as the water spectacularly melts Karen's flesh right off. Ouchies. Body Count: 4

Back to Dr. Loomis and Co. A nurse from the Smith's Grove Sanitarium catches up to them and informs Loomis that he is to return to SGS immediately because he has severely fucked up this whole Michael Myers thing. Oh dear. Cut back to the hospital, where Jimmy The Paramedic has stolen back into Laurie's room to make a heartfelt speech about how he's never going to let anything happen to her. Aaaw. Too bad Laurie didn't hear any of it, because she has had a reaction to her medication and is catatonic.

Jimmy summons help, and Nurse Janet runs down the hall to Dr. Mixter's office, as he is clearly the only doctor in the entire hospital. He is also as dead as Winona Ryder's career after that unfortunate shoplifting incident. Body Count: 5. Janet barely has time to react to this when Michael ambushes her with a syringe to the eyeball. Body Count: 6. Whoever is playing Michael here tries his best to do the little head tilt thing from the first movie and make it just as creepy. He fails. Tell me that doesn't look like a sad clown:

Jimmy has grown tired of waiting for that useless Janet to return with Dr. Mixter and goes in search of the head nurse, Nurse Alves, which leaves Laurie's room unattended. Michael creeps in with a scalpel at the ready. He's going to finally murder Laurie and damn if anything is going to stop him now. Oops...not so fast there, Mikey. Take a look under the covers. Go on, look. LOOK I said! See? You've been stabbing nothing but mattress, because Laurie is gone. HA. Also, what? I thought she was comatose, unless maybe she was merely pretending for some reason. I dunno. Just go with it. Laurie stumbles her way across the hospital and attempts to phone for help. I guess she didn't get the memo about the phones being out. Time for Plan B. Jimmy and a nurse named Jill have suddenly realized that the hospital's staff of utter morons are all gone and they're mysteriously alone. Jimmy is all "We have to find Laurie!!!!!" and his brilliant plan is for he and Jill to split up and search separate wings of No Lights Memorial Hospital. This should turn out well.

Jimmy's search turns up the body of Nurse Alves, who has been given the IV drip of death (Body Count: 7). As he turns around to leave, he slips in her blood and falls right on his head. Good job. Jill, meanwhile, has opted to get the hell out of Dodge and is scurrying across the parking lot to her car. But oh noes...her engine won't start! And every last car in the parking lot has flat tires! Whatever you do, Jill, I definitely wouldn't run back into the...goddammit. I said NOT to go back into the hospital. *Sigh* Jill happens to run right into Laurie's path and implores her to stop stumbling away from her. Laurie turns around just in time to see Michael lift Jill up off the floor by sheer force of his scalpel. Body Count: 8. And it's ON.

Laurie can run really well all of a sudden for someone who was stumbling mere seconds earlier. She runs and runs until she reaches the basement, where Michael has conveinently laid out the bodies of all the victims. I'm rather confused as to when he had the time to do this, but I'll go with it. He catches up with Laurie, who quite conveniently manages to hail the elevator just in the nick of time to escape. She exits the elevator like a bat out of hell and hauls ass out of the hospital and into the parking lot.

Cut to Loomis being escorted back to Smith's Grove with the nurse lady. He begins one of his patented Dramatic Loomis Monologues, but she interrupts him and informs him that there is a SECRET FILE on Michael Myers that was so super duper SECRET that nobody ever knew about it, because it was such a SECRET. And the best thing about secrets is secretly telling someone your secret, thereby adding another secret to their secret collection of secrets, secretly. Ahem. Anyway. According to the SECRET FILE, Laurie is Michael's sister. Um, wow. I would totally be astonished, except for the fact that they pretty much already revealed this information thirty minutes ago via Laurie's flashback. So...yeah. Loomis convinces the driver to turn the car around and go to the hospital, by way of firing a gun near the driver's head. Loomis is awesome.

Laurie is hiding in a car when who should appear but Jimmy The Paramedic. He assures her that he will get her out of here, and then he faints right on top of the horn, providing Michael with a loud, blaring signal as to their whereabouts. Jimmy....you're full of fail. Laurie manages to pry him off the steering wheel and tries to start the car. It won't start. She has the good fortune to stumble out of the car right as Loomis and Co. are walking into the hospital, but wastes this stroke of luck by waiting to scream for help until they're already inside. Good job, Laurie.

She finally gets her wits about her and pounds on the hospital doors. They let her in, but Michael is right on her ass and just barges through the glass doors because he is made of badassery. Loomis is ready with a gun and shoots Michael down, not that it worked before. And guess what? It didn't work this time either. As the cab driver/police officer bends down to get reeeeally close to Michael's face, Mikey sits right up and slashes the hell out of the dude's throat. Body Count: 9. Idiot. Everyone knows you never get right up in the killer's face when you think he's dead. Because he never is.

Anyhoo, Loomis and Laurie must now run. And run they do, as Michael slowly stalks them like he's got all the time in the world. Loomis shoves his gun in Michael's face, and Michael responds by shoving his scalpel into Loomis' stomach. Score one for Michael, I suppose. Laurie has had quite enough of Michael's shit tonight and shoots him right between the eyes. As Michael hilariously swings his scalpel blindly at Laurie, Loomis gets up and blows up an oxygen tank, totally annihilating the entire wing of the hospital they're in. Never mind that there might be patients in that wing, or anything. The important thing is, Michael and Loomis are both dead. Until we get to Halloween 4, that is, when they are both miraculously resurrected because it turns out that you can't slap the title Halloween 3 on a movie that's not in any way, shape, or form about Michael Myers and expect a great box office return. But that will be another blog for another day. Body Count: 11. Roll credits and get Mr. Sandman stuck in my head for the rest of the night. Thanks.

I would be lying if I said I didn't love the entire Halloween franchise, faults and all. So here's to you, Halloween II, for being such a delicious slice of the slasher era of old.

"Your Ass Stinks" or Return To Sleepaway Camp (2008)

And now we come to it. The final chapter (for now) in the Sleepaway Camp franchise. Return To Sleepaway Camp had, apparently, been stuck in development hell for like 6 years or something, because it was supposed to come out in 2002 and was only recently released last fall. This is truly a gem of the series.

Naaaah, I'm totally kidding. Actually, while it doesn't exactly suck out loud, nobody would mistake it for a Good Movie. Good to know a movie can be worked on for so long and still be a turkey. Fortunately, I enjoy turkey. For all it's turkiness, though, the movie does have some good qualities. For one thing, it tones down the self-referential slasher humor several hundred notches and makes a quasi-return to the campy yet serious tone of the first movie. For another, a shitload of cast members from the first movie have come back. So, yeah. Let's DO THIS. (By the way, if you haven't yet seen this particular entry in the series, this recap is going to be super duper spoilerific. So, consider yourself warned. It's also a lot longer than usual, so grab a sandwich or something).
Behold, dear readers: the DVD cover art for Return To Sleepaway Camp. I like it. I like it a lot. It reminds me of the poster for Friday The 13th. The only thing that bothers me is the weird capitalization of the word "mean." It looks out of place. Either capitalize everything, or capitalize "Kids" and leave the rest.

As is the tradition with Sleepaway Camp films, the film opens with a credits sequence featuring a shitty metal song that is probably playing in a Hot Topic near you as we speak, per se. The credits play out over newspaper clippings that basically recap the first movie for you. Apparently, this movie is going to pull a Halloween H20 on us and pretend that the last two sequels never happened. That kind of makes me want to cry, knowing that Death By Toilet never occurred. *Sniff*

Well, anyway. According to those clippings, our setting for slasher terror this time is the idyllic Camp Manabe, where a cabin full of 13 year old boys are currently lighting their farts on fire. Charming. As they are giggling over this, a boy named Alan comes out of the bathroom and demands to know what's so effing funny. Now, this isn't just any boy. This is a sweaty beast of a boy who appears to have not bathed in at least six months. Seriously, his hair is filthy, and there's huge greasy stains on his shirt and everything. Behold the disgustingness:
Since you undoubtedly now feel like you need a shower, I'll wait. I'll wait right here for you to come back.

*Humming "Wake Me up Before You Go-Go" and filing nails*

All done? Good. Now, Alan demands to be given a turn at creating Fart Fire. He is made fun of for being gross and lights some aerosol in retaliation, which gets him in trouble with Randy, the British counselor. Alan doesn't like being told what to do, so he hurls some choice insults at Randy before running out the door, including calling him a "big penis" and informing him that his ass stinks. His words, not mine. Randy mutters that he'll show that little jackass what's what one of these days.

In the mess hall the next day, Alan (still wearing the disgusting greasy shirt from the night before, eeew) hurls some kind of food stuff at one of the boys for no reason. Randy remarks that if Alan wasn't such a "wanker," maybe his brother wouldn't be moving in on his girlfriend. We follow Randy's gaze to a neighboring table, Alan's crush, Karen, is being talked up by Alan's brother. Everybody at the table has a good laugh at Alan's expense.
Presently, the camp owner gets up and, with the help of another counselor, gets everybody's attention. He announces that a police officer is here to speak to them about the dangers of smoking. The police officer, speaking through a voice box thingy, tells the sad story of how he smoked for 30 years and lost his voice due to cancer, and all the campers find this riotously funny. They laugh like hyenas for a few minutes to show us what big asshats they are.

Back at Randy's table, Alan is bitching that the camp food is gross and that he refuses to eat it. Randy is all "Tough, eat it anyhow." Alan still refuses, and Randy gets pissed and shoves Alan's head into his plate, yelling at him to "Eat the fucking chicken." Wow. Alan is an ass-cozy and all, but...that's just asking for a lawsuit, man. Anyway, when Alan still refuses to eat the chicken, Randy throws the plate onto the floor, and shoves Alan onto the floor as well, commanding him to clean it up. Lawsuits, lawsuits, let's watch the potential lawsuits pile up. Randy and Alan are about to beat the crap out of each other, when somebody intervenes. Who is it?
Hey, it's Ronnie (aka Short Shorts) from the first movie! What a surprise! Short Shorts takes Alan aside and calmly requests that he refrain from being a turd. Alan puts on a pleasant facade and agrees, only to pull a girl's pigtails when Short Shorts isn't looking. A chick named Bella, who is made of sass and attitude (hereby referred to as sassitude), trips Alan and is all "Your face looks like my ass!" HAHAHAHAHAHA. I like Bella. Like Angela twenty years before him, Alan is given the Special Snowflake treatment and is sent to the kitchen to get something special to eat. Here we meet Charlie the chef. But I'm just gonna call him Chef. I think the following visual aid expresses my reason for that.

Chef is quitting for the day, but tells Alan that his assistant Mickey will take care of him. Mickey will do no such thing, and yells at Alan to get the hell out of the ice cream freezer. Naturally, Alan helps himself to ice cream anyway. By the way, his shirt has gotten REALLY gross over the course of the day. The grease stains are multiplying. EEEW EEEEW EEEEW. Anyway, Mickey gets pissed over that and starts throwing eggs at Alan. Alan throws knives at Mickey. Short Shorts, the camp owner, and a counselor named Petey put a stop to these shenanigans, and Alan runs off.

Michael, Alan's brother, has been sent to go fetch him, so he chases Alan until they end up in the woods. Alan sits down and starts playing with some frogs, and is all "The frogs are my friends." LMAO. It is revealed that Alan is an asshole because of a fever he had as a child. It is also revealed that Michael is really Alan's stepbrother, not that it has any bearing on the plot. Michael kicks some frogs just to piss Alan off, and Alan pulls a knife on him and is all "Go away."

So later, Mickey is in the kitchen by himself, picking his nose and preparing hamburgers and fries for his dinner. Presently, a pair of feet advance upon him and somebody pounces, lifting Mickey up and holding him aloft over the vat of french fry oil. This mysterious somebody listens to Mickey's pleading for a few minutes before awesomely dropping him face first into the oil. (Body Count: 1) If this kill sounds familiar, that's because it pretty much copies the first kill in Part 1. So, brownie points for that. Mystery Killer then tosses his burnt ass into a trash compacter, much like what was done to Milkshake in Part 3.

Later on, Chef and Short-Shorts go to Frank the camp owner and bitch that they told Mickey to take the damn trash out hours ago and it's still there, and now there's rats by the trash compacter. Frank's like "Fire him," and goes back to petting his pet parrot, Matilda. An awful lot of emphasis is placed on Matilda, which leads me to believe that something non-PETA approved is going to happen to her later.

Hey, there's a party going on in the rec hall! Just like in the first movie. Seriously, there's even a kid sitting on a bench eating a candy bar, exactly like Angela did in Part 1. If they could have done so, the filmmakers would have erected a huge flashing neon sign in the corner of the screen that says "LOOK AT THE PARALLELS BETWEEN THIS MOVIE AND THE ORIGINAL! AREN'T THEY GREAT?" Yeah, they're ok. Just ok.
Anyways, YAY PARTY! Alan comes strutting out in all his disgusting glory (his grease stained shirt has gotten still greasier and it's kind of starting to make me ill...you KNOW this kids smells like B.O., and possibly worse) and acts like a complete douche. He saunters up to Karen and tries to act all cool around her, which is kind of pathetic, and she's all "You smell!" Hahahaha. Then Alan withstands a bevy of physical abuse from his fellow campers until an all-out brawl has broken out. Unfortunately, the brawl is broken up by Frank and that Petey girl. Petey is shown to be the one counselor in the camp who is somewhat sympathetic to Alan, since she does acknowledge that the other campers actually started the fight.

Alan makes his way behind the rec hall's stage, where two guys are smoking weed. After a misunderstanding where they refer to a joint as "a fatty" and Alan almost gets pissed until he realizes they weren't talking about him (*Snort*), they offer him a joint. He starts smoking it and collapses from how disgusting it is. It's not a real joint, see, for instead of pot, it is filled with cow poo. Since Alan has never tried it before, he doesn't know any better and keeps saying "Yeah, this stuff is awesome!" between his gasps for clean air. And this movie has officially made me nauseous. Yet another brawl breaks out when Alan finds out, and once again it's broken up by Petey.

Later that night, the two stoner guys and their girlfriends are out in back of a cabin smoking and carelessly tossing their butts next to gasoline cans. Both girls and one stoner guy leave, leaving the other stoner all by his lonesome outside. Do you know what it's time for? No, not a sexy party. It's time for another kill! And a pretty awesome one, too. A mysterious somebody approaches Stoner Guy and ties him to his own chair. Then, a hose is attached to a gasoline can, and gasoline is pumped into Stoner's mouth. When that is finished, a piece of tape emblazoned with the words "Drugs are for Dummies" is pasted across Stoner's mouth with a single hole in it. In this hole is placed a cigarette, which is then lit. Body Count: 2
As the charred remains of the body are being cleaned up, Ronnie and Frank and Officer Voice Box discuss the tragic turn of events. Ronnie is like "Angela must be back!" and for the benefit of Officer VB, we are given the whole "Angela was really a dude who killed campers 20 years ago" back story. Frank disregards this theory as a load of codswallop and is all "Do NOT discuss this Angela person!"

Next day, Alan pesters Karen until she finally agrees to meet him later in his secret hiding place in the woods, where all the frogs are. Following that small triumph, Alan is continually shot at close range with paintball guns, adding a rainbow of paint stains to his already nasty, grease-filled shirt. I can hardly stand to look at the boy anymore, that's how disgusting his shirt has become. Meanwhile, that police officer has paid a visit to none other than Angela's cousin Ricky. He tells Ricky about the death of Stoner Boy and implies that it might be connected to the Great Camp Arawak Massacre of 1983. Ricky takes offense to that and is all "But she's been locked up in the nut house for 20 years and I see her every few weeks" and Police Officer is all "You mean him." HAHA. Anyway, Ricky is like "Screw off" and Police Officer drives away looking thoughtful behind the sunglasses that are permanently attached to his face.
So, back to Alan. As she promised, Karen meets him in his secret hideaway, only to haul ass out of there when she sees a bunch of dead skinned frogs lying around. Turns out that two of Karen's guy friends did the skinning both for the purpose of embarrassing Alan in front of her, and to just plain piss him off since he regards the frogs as friends. Alan runs after Karen to tell her he didn't kill the frogs, and they wind up on the pier during Free Swim. Karen is all "Get AWAY from me, freak" and every counselor comes to her defense. Randy takes that a step further and encourages some campers to give Alan a wedgie and then throw him in the water. (Hey, I got a great idea. Let's drink every time homage is paid to a scene from the first movie!) Unlike with Angela, I can't say I have any sympathy for Alan being tossed in the lake, because at least his shirt got cleaned a little in the process. THANK YOU. Petey, who is fast becoming this movie's answer to Ricky, assists Alan out of the water and tells off the counselors.

That night, another trick is played on Alan (Karen lures him behind the rec hall stage so that her guy friends can strip off all his clothes and then shove him out on the stage, where Alan is caught wearing nothing but undies). While this was mean of them, at least he's no longer wearing that nasty shirt. So, you know, whatever.

Once again, Petey saves the day. She and Ronnie take Alan back to his bunk (and put a clean shirt on him, I notice). After Alan falls asleep, Ronnie starts looking at Petey thoughtfully before absolutely losing his shit and demanding to know who Petey REALLY is, because it's awfully suspicious that she's constantly right there to save Alan's butt. Ronnie believes that Petey is Angela in disguise and is screaming at her when Police Officer interrupts the scene, with Frank hot on his heels. Ronnie starts babbling to them that Petey is Angela and needs to be stopped before she kills again. Frank is like "I told you to shut up about that crap." During this argument, a bunch of boys gather outside and start chanting obscene things, which wakes Alan up. Alan snaps and run off into the woods, which nobody seems to care about.

To be honest, this movie is kind of starting to bore me. Luckily, it is now time for another kill. Sweet. The victim this time is Frank. Our mysterious somebody removes Matilda from her cage, which causes the bird to squawk. Frank emerges to see what the bird's problem is and gets whacked on the head. When he wakes up, he finds that he is tied to a chair, with Matilda's cage placed over his head. The killer advances on him with a bag full of something that is moving and he/she hits the bag to make sure whatever is in there is also pissed. They then empty the contents of the bag, which turns out to be rats, into the cage to share space with Frank's head. Body Count: 3
As a special treat, we're gonna be given another kill scene. Randy and his girlfriend Linda are in the woods in order to get down and dirty. However, they forgot their sleeping bag, and, like a real gentleman, Randy orders Linda to go fetch it while he takes a piss. Such chivalry. *Eye roll* As Randy is getting his business done, our Mysterious Killer ties him to a tree. Randy assumes it's his girlfriend, as is the horror cliche. So he isn't really upset about the tying. He does, however, start to protest when a piece of sharp wire is tied around his junk. Linda hears his screams and is all "You're on your own, I ain't waiting around to be killed with you." So she hops into the Jeep and speeds off. Unfortunately for Randy, the other piece of the wire is attached to the car. As Linda speeds away, Randy's penis pops right the hell off. Seriously, it POPS. RIGHT. OFF. With an actual "Pop" sound and everything. It's hilarious. I think we can assume he died of massive blood loss, even though it isn't shown. So, Body Count: 4. Don't worry, the killer didn't forget about Linda. They set up a nice piece of barbed wire for her to run into while she speeds out of the woods. Body Count: 5

Moving right along, a boy alone in his cabin is looking at a dirty magazine when a sharpened broomstick pops up through a hole in the floor and nearly misses his head. Naturally, he decides to put his eye right up close to the hole, which is always a smart thing to do in a horror movie. Needless to say, the broomstick comes right back up and impales the kid right through the head. Body Count: 6. In the midst of all these happenings, Ronnie discovers Frank's body, which is all the proof he needs that he was right and Angela has returned. Or has she? Nobody knows.

As if the movie has realized that it's practically over and not enough kills have occurred, the kill scenes just keep on coming like Pez candy. The next victim is Bella, the awesome girl with the sassitude from earlier in the movie. Bella enters her cabin to find it empty, and flops down on her bottom bunk. She turns onto her back to see that the bottom of the bunk above her has been riddled with sharp nails. Before she has much time to ponder why there's so many nails pointing at her face, Mysterious Killer throws him or herself upon the top bunk with all their might, breaking it and effectively driving every last nail into Bella. Body Count: 7, and I have to say, I'm sorry to see Bella go. I enjoyed her sassitude.

Now that bodies are starting to be discovered, Ronnie is on a mission to track down Petey, whom he is still convinced is Angela in disguise. Campers gather around him and insist that Alan is the killer, since everybody who has been discovered dead so far had been a total jackass to him and he hasn't been seen since he ran off earlier. Police Officer Dude appears and tells everybody to shut the fuck up, as they are not helping by causing more commotion. Cousin Ricky suddenly shows up, and asks Police Officer why the hell he asked him to come here. Police Officer is all "I didn't" and says that somebody must have pretended to be him and asked Ricky to come. Finally, it is decided that Police Officer will search for Alan on one end of the camp and Ronnie and Ricky will search on the other. Everybody disperses.
Meanwhile, Karen is running like a maniac through the woods, because she has discovered Bella's body, is convinced that Alan is responsible, and believes she will be killed next. She runs and runs until she is knocked out by the killer. She comes to and discovers that her neck is tied to the basketball hoop in the rec hall. She is slowly hoisted upward and is about to be hung when Alan's stepbrother Michael and Police Officer Dude come rushing in and stop the rope from being hoisted any further. Karen is hysterical and is all 'It's ALAN!!! HE DID IT!"
Speaking of Alan, the movie now shows us that he's sitting in his secret hiding place, crying over his dead frogs. Michael suddenly shows up, ready to kick his ass. He beats the crap out of Alan before being interrupted by a Mysterious Somebody. Fade to black.

Ronnie and Ricky are still searching for Alan and eventually wander into his secret hiding spot. They find Alan beaten but concious, and then look around some more. They are quite shocked by what meets their eyes, although I am not, because I saw it coming from the beginning of the movie.

We see a pair of feet walking slowly towards Ronnie and Ricky, and the distinctive robotic sound of a voice being filtered through an artificial voice box, saying that the dead people were mean and deserved their fates. We also see various things being tossed onto the ground as the feet walk, such as a fake mustache, a wig, and a rubber nose. Finally, the voice box is thrown onto the ground, and the normal voice of Angela informs them that Michael has been skinned alive, made to suffer the same fate as the frogs. Cool. Body Count: 8 The movie ends with an awesome shot of Angela laughing maniacally before giving us in the audience the Icy Glare of Death.
See?

Well, there you have it. We have officially covered every last Sleepaway Camp film there is. Hasn't it been awesome? Stay tuned for next time, when I recap...well...something. I haven't decided yet.

"Have A Nice Life...What's Left Of It," or Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland (1989)

After two months of being, frankly, too damn tired to blog anything, we are FINALLY continuing our Sleepaway Camp posting bonanza. I present to you Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland. Such wonders as bad wigs, stupid one liners, campers with the IQ of a french fry, and 80s teenage punk bad-assery await you. Let's start, as always, with the poster:
Well. At least they're up front about what you can expect from this masterpiece of a film. Moving on to the movie itself...

NOTE: As was the case with Sleepaway Camp 2, I am reviewing this movie from the crappiest of DVD transfers from the $5 bin. Lucky me.

We open on a teenage girl waking up and getting ready to go to summer camp while arguing with her offscreen mother. The first thing she does is take off her shirt (of course) and the camera lingers on her nonexistent boobs for, like, 5 minutes. Long enough for us to notice that she has the word "Milk" tattooed on one booby and the word "Shake" on the other. Hilarious. Her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and they're like, it's better than yours. Damn right... Sorry.

Anyhoodle, she starts a-walkin' to the bus stop with her little duffel bag in hand, all excited about camp and stuff. When what to my wandering eyes should appear, but a big old Mack truck. A Mack truck with a mission. A mission to kill Milkshake here. Three guesses who's behind the wheel. The truck chases Milkshake into an alley and runs her ass over. (Body Count: 1) Next thing you know, Milkshake is being dragged and stuffed into the nearest trash compacter by...ANGELA. She's baaaaaaack! And she's dressed exactly like Milkshake, right down to the hair. That's right. Gone are Angela's curly brown locks from Part 2. Instead she's wearing a wig that looks like....well...I'll just let the wig speak for itself.
I know, right? It's like it's looking into your soul. Anyway...

Angela dons some bitchin' shades (see above) and boards the bus to Camp New Horizons. As the bus pulls away, some wall graffiti is revealed that says, with gusto, "Angela is Back!" Indeed she is. Indeed she is. And with that, the opening credits start rolling. Unlike with the crappy DVD of Sleepaway Camp 2, I can actually hear the music over the credits this time. And I have to say, I'm not impressed. You crazy 80s punk kids and your heavy metal. Get off of my lawn.

Cut to a news reporter lady providing us with exposition as she interviews the owners of Camp New Horizons, husband and wife Herman and Lily (tee-hee), who happily explain that the purpose of the camp is to mix together snobby rich kids with hardened children of the street and watch how they work together in peace and harmony. Right. Let me know how that works out for ya. We then are introduced to some of the snobby rich kids in their clean-cut Growing Pains clothes. Here we meet queen bitch Cindy, full of himself Greg, Madonna-wannabe Jan, hopeless nerd Peter, jock asshole Bobby, and goody two shoes Marcia. Do those names sound familiar? Well they should.
This naming scheme is even more amusing than the Brat pack theme in Part 2. Now we meet the charity case poor kids, who are mostly dressed all in black with plenty of metal doo-dads to indicate how punk they are. Arab, Snowboy, Anita, Riff, Tony, aaaaand...Angela. But she's pretending her name is Maria. Shhhhhhh.

Because no Sleepaway Camp film would be complete without them spelling out who the resident bitch is right up front, Marcia (who is set up to be our most likely Final Girl) confides to Cindy that she thinks Tony is cute and Cindy is all "But...he's Mexican!" in her snottiest voice. Wow. Such racist bitchery so early in the morning. The news reporter lady continues her coverage by explaining to us that Camp New Horizons is nothing more than Camp Rolling Hills from Part 2 with a new name slapped on it, and Lily is like "OMG you promised you wouldn't mention the murders from the last movie!" and the news reporter is all "Tough nuggets, I just did."
News reporter lady, having fulfilled her purpose by giving us the appropriate back story we need to continue with the movie, now saunters up to Angela and tells her she looks way older than the rest of the campers. SHENANIGANS, I say. Every last camper looks at least 25 years old. Angels fits right in. But Angela tells her that she looks older because of drugs. And the news reporter asks her where she can get some coke and Angela is all "Yeah, there's a machine in the dining hall!" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, Angela. Don't you ever change. The reporter is like "That's not what I meant, idiot" and pleads with Angela to sell her a gram to calm her nerves. Raise your hand if you think news reporter lady is gonna end up being the next victim. Me too.

"One of the many dangers of being a drug addict is never really knowing if the stuff is pure," Angela chirps to herself as she fills a plastic bag with powdered Clorox, which she then hands over to news reporter lady, who then drives her car into a clearing, snorts the Clorox, and keels over on the spot. Body Count: 2 Drugs are bad, mm'kay?

Back at the camp mess hall, Lily cheerily explains to the groaning campers that for the next three days they will be split into three groups and be camping out in the woods. While she is answering stupid questions like "Do the boys get to sleep with the girls?" and 'Whaddya MEAN we have to camp out????" her husband is jostling his junk up and down to impress Jan, who I guess will be our resident camp whore. Why his wife doesn't notice (since she's only like 10 feet away) I'll never know. Anyway, Lily asks if anyone knows the Happy Camper Song. Oh God, yes. Angela jumps out of her seat like a little kid and is all "I DO!!!!!"

Hahahahahaha, adorable. Unfortunately, the Happy Camper Song is not sung (damn it all) because it's at this moment that the third counselor, Barney, arrives. And his arrival makes Angela mighty uncomfortable, for reasons that will be explained elsewhere in the film. For now, Barney lets us know he is a cop and asserts his authori-TAH by breaking up a knife fight between Tony and Riff, because knife fights are bound to happen when you put a bunch of hardened street hoodlums in one place.

In the girls' cabin, Jan and Arab give the teenage boys in the audience what they came here for by showing off their boobs as they change into their rockin' Camp New Horizons shirts. They also make fun of Angela for being so square as to wear a bra while she changes into her shirt. Then all the girls except Angela go and talk about how they hate being at summer camp, especially one in which people were murdered. Boo hoo.

Now that everybody is sporting the stylish camp shirts, they are divided into their little groups and disperse to do some camping out. Barney's group gets all excited that they get to eat wieners for dinner. Giggity. As the hot dog excitement dies down, Barney provides us with the reason Angela is uncomfortable in his presence: his son was Sean from Part 2. The one who got his decapitated head stuffed into a television set by Angela. And Barney is here at the newly reopened camp to make damn sure nobody else ends up dead. Methinks he will be less than successful. Meanwhile...

Herman's group, of which Angela is a part, is being made to go fishing. Everybody but Angela bitches about this, but they all go anyway. Except for Herman. And Jan. They stay behind in a tent. Can you guess where this is going? If you said an awkwardly staged sex scene, then you win imaginary money. But first, we look in on how the fishing is coming along. Angela, Snowboy, and Peter are fishing their hearts out, despite the fact that the boys are still bitching about it. Angela brings her fishing pole out of the water and a Jason mask is attached to the end of it.
Peter thinks he's funny and lights a firework inside a fish, and Angela screams her ass off. Damn, Angela. What's with the wimpitude? You're a badass murderous bitch! Get with the program.

And now we join this sex scene already in progress. As Herman and Jan get busy in the tent, a pair of feet slowly advance toward them, and then Angela pokes her head into the tent and gives them a disapproving glare. So Herman gets out to explain himself and gets whacked on the head as soon as he leaves the tent. Then he runs around in his long johns while Angela continues to give him a beat down with a blunt stick.

I'm going to pause here for a second and muse. I assume this is supposed to be a summer camp. Meant to be in operation during the SUMMER months. And yet, not only are there colorful leaves all over the ground, but everybody is wearing jackets and such, and now Herman is donning long johns. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was the fall. So, either this is some weird-ass camp that is in operation during the fall, or this thing had to be filmed during the fall, the cast were allowed to wear cold weather clothing to be comfortable, and the film makers hoped nobody would notice. I'm gonna go with the second explanation because it makes me smile. And now back to your regularly scheduled murder.

Angela has impaled Herman with her beat-down stick (Body Count: 3), and Jan starts screaming her head off. Angela quickly silences her with a well placed blow to the head (Body Count: 4). As she shoves Jan's body into the tent, Angela deadpans "Good thing you're dead, because in a couple years, your breasts would have been sagging." Snap, Angela. Snap. Back at her campsite, Angela is trying her best to start a fire to cook some fish, only for exasperation to fill her little heart as Peter tosses a rock at her and Snowboy graffitis her tent. Put them on your shit list, Angela. Send them HOME, I say.
Barney's group has finished their weenie roast, and Marcia has to go to the bathroom. Tony is ordered to accompany her. As they are striking up a conversation (and an adorable little budding romance), they hear noises in the woods and freak the fuck out, only to discover the noises were made by a raccoon. Ah, horror cliches. How we adore thee.

Fed up with Snowboy and Peter's shenanigans, Angela has decided the time has come to send them home. She awesomely lights a firecracker in Snowboy's face AND hits him bluntly in the head, tosses his body into Peter's tent, and torches the tent. (Body Count: 6) Now THAT's what I call efficient murderage. The best part is when Angela calmly slides some marshmallows into a stick to roast on the tent's flame. This is why Angela is awesome, yall. Moments like that.


The next morning we look in on Lily's group, which we haven't seen at all since the groups were formed the previous day. Angela descends upon them and feeds Lily some bullshit story about how Herman said she's supposed to switch places with Arab. Once she has Arab back at the empty campsite, Angela shoves her into a tent and then axes her to death. (Body Count: 7) Angela is totally slipping into unoriginality in this movie. I mean, come on. Axes and sticks and fire? Is that the best you can do, Angela? Any old serial killer can do that shit. Where are your awesome kills, like the death by toilet in Part 2 or the boiling water in Part 1? Get it together, Angela. Give us an exciting kill. Seriously.

Well anyway, Angela rejoins Lily's group, which is sitting in a circle doing Sharing and Caring. Yay! Lily asks Angela what her favorite movie is and Angela says E.T. Aaaaw. Bobby says his favorite is Rambo 3. Eeesh. Cindy declares she enjoys movies with great acting, "like Gone With The Wind. Or Care Bears." I think blood just started pouring from my eyes. After that earth shattering statement, Cindy bitches about Riff always playing his damn rap music, because rap offends her delicate ears. Riff counters that rap is better than country, and Cindy retorts that country is way better than rap, and I really wish Angela would kill the both of them right now so they'd shut the fuck up. Then Cindy spews a racial slur at Riff, who loses his shit and goes to let her have it. Lily is all "Stop it" and the both of them storm off to sulk. Angela pours herself some coffee and is all 'Siiiiiigh'.
Let's see how the morning is going for Barney's group. Anita asks Barney what ever happened to this Angela Baker chick everybody keeps talking about. Barney is like "Dunno" and explains that the only pictures that exist of Angela are from when she still looked like Felissa Rose, and that her juvenile records were destroyed when she turned 18, and that now the only thing people have to go on is descriptions of her. Ok. I'll buy it. Barney declares he'll kill her if he ever encounters her. Good luck with that, dude. I still have one more sequel left to blog.

Back at Lily's group, it's time for trust exercises. Everyone is split into pairs, one person is blindfolded, and their partner leads them around. I had to do that in my theatre classes in high school, and I always thought it was fun because I'm weird like that. Anyway, Angela has been paired with Cindy, who bossily orders Angela to be the first to wear the blindfold. So, Cindy leads Angela around and continues to bitch about Riff, and Angela is like 'Whatevs." Then they stop because Cindy has to take a smoke break. The final nail in Cindy's coffin is when she puts a slug on Angela's shoulder. Angela has had enough of this bitch and demands the blindfold be taken off, it's CINDY'S turn to be led around.

Angela leads her to a flagpole. This could be interesting. She asks Cindy some questions and learns that she is a drug taking, non-virgin cheerleader. Well, that simply won't do. She hooks Cindy's belt up to the flag string and begins to raise her up to the top. Why, I think we're about to have the first interesting death since the Clorox snort. I'm right. Once Cindy is at the tippity top, Angela lets go of the string and Cindy goes splat. Body Count: 8

Back at the campsite, Lily orders Angela around like Cinderella. Go take the garbage out, go fetch me some bug spray, make the fire, fix the breakfast, wash the dishes, do the moppin'....sorry. You can tell Angela is cheesed by this but she goes with the flow for now. She makes her way up to a cabin to get the bug spray and stuff and has flashbacks of singing the Happy Camper Song in Part 2, only she imagines that everybody cheered for her. She even adds, in her best Sally Field impression, "You like me! You really like me!" Poor Angela. All she wants is acceptance. Is that so much to ask? Well, IS IT????

Angela returns to the campsite, her chores completed, only to discover that she's being sent on another trust exercise, with Bobby this time. They are to catch fish while tied together, which sounds like it would be extremely inefficient. Bobby seals his gory fate by practically jumping Angela's bones, and she's all "Oh HELL naw." But she plays along and instructs him to meet her later. They return to the campsite, where Angela kindly asks Riff to clean the fish they caught, only to get a gun pointed in her face. I think we can safely assume Riff is doomed as well. Angela's gonna be a busy bee tonight.

Meanwhile, Marcia and Tony are in the woods engaging in their blindfolded trust exercise. They sit down to have a heart-to-heart and Marcia is like "Are you in a GANG?" And of course Tony is in a gang, and Marcia is all excited and is like "OMG REALLY???" They start to get it on, but before things progress Marcia gets all 80's PSA on us and hands Tony a condom. How subliminal.

Back to Angela and her dastardly deeds. Now with three more victims she needs to cross off her list, she decides to start with Lily. She convinces Lily to accompany her on a "trust exercise." This should be fun. Angela wastes no time in tossing Lily in a pit of garbage and burying her alive. WHILE SINGING THE HAPPY CAMPER SONG. It doesn't get much better than that. When Lily is completely buried except for her head, Angela piles on the piece de resistance by running over said head with a lawnmower. (Body Count: 9) That's my girl. I think Angela has finally gotten her creative groove back.
Bobby is next, and his death is slightly less interesting than Lily's, but still pretty sweet. Under the guise of some sexiful bondage play, Angela ties him and his acid wash jeans to a tree, ties the other end of the rope to a car, and starts drivin'. Cue death scream, aaaaand scene. (Body Count: 10)

Cut to Riff in his tent, grooving to his rap music. Angela reaches into his tent and tosses him a cassette tape. Upon inserting the tape into his boombox, Riff hears perhaps the worst rap in the history of all rap. I speak, of course, about Angela's rap about how she's about to kill him. Actually, to call it a rap is kind of a stretch. She sounds more like a bored cheerleader practicing for the upcoming football game. In any case, while he's listening, mouth agape at the awfulness of her rap skills, Angela collapses his tent on him and starts beating him to death with her beat-down mallet. Then she pounds a tent stake into his flesh. Body Count: 11

Angela has now single-handedly taken down two of the three groups, and she sees no reason to stop now. She makes her way over to Barney's group and feeds them the same "I'm supposed to switch" crap as before. She picks Marcia as her intended victim, since she saw her making out with Tony on her way over. Unfortunately, Barney throws a wrench into her plan by insisting on accompanying the girls and supervising the switch, like a responsible counseler. Obviously, this won't do. Angela will have to formulate a Plan B.

Angela pretends to sprain her ankle in order to get Marcia and Barney into the mess hall, where she complains to Barney that Herman is a perv and Lily is lazy. Marcia wanders outside to make fun of Lily for her laziness, and discovers the wreckage from the Lawnmower Of Atrocity. She screams, Barney comes running, and screams at Marcia to run the fuck away when he sees the carnage. For he has discovered Angela's identity, and the time has come to exact his revenge. So he gets all Dirty Harry on Angela and delivers a great monologue, only for Angela to pull out a gun and kill him right there on the spot.
Well. I'd be lying if I said that wasn't rather disappointing. Body Count: 12

With Marcia still on the lam, Angela hops into her trusty beige Jeep and eventually catches up with her, whisking her off to parts unknown. Meanwhile, the only three surviving campers (Anita, Greg, and Tony, of course) are sitting around wondering where exactly Marcia and Angela have gone. Speak of the devil, Angela suddenly appears as if by Slasher Magic. They allow her to tie them up under the guise of "We're gonna play a trust game because Barney said so." God, these kids will believe anything you tell them, won't they? Anyway, after she has them all tied up, she spectacularly reveals Barney's dead corpse to them.

Angela explains to the Three Musketeers that the object of the game they're now playing against their will is to find Marcia, who is in one of three cabins. And if they run away, don't find her, or open a can of whoop-ass on Angela, they will be killed. Sweet. On that happy note, they haul ass to track down Marcia. They succeed with 7 seconds to spare, but Anita and Greg are killed...in...some way. I wasn't really paying attention there. (Body Count: 14) But Marcia and Tony are still alive, and Angela congratulates them on winning and gives them directions to the nearest pay phone. What a darling.
Marcia is all "Bitch, you did NOT just put me through all this shit and expect to get away with it" and goes after Angela with all the rage of an angry cobra. They have a cat fight and Marcia stabs the shit out of Angela, who gasps some death rattles and is seemingly down for the count. As Marcia and Tony are recovering from their ordeal in a police cruiser, Tony is happily planning their future and shit and Marcia drops a bomb with "I already have a boyfriend." SNAP. Also, WHORE. Forget that skank, Tony. You can do better.

In the ambulance, Angela is still alive and two paramedics are debating whether or not to just kill her and put an end to her reign of cheese-tastic terror. Angela puts an end to them. Body Count: 16. Roll credits.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the masterpiece known as Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland. Check back next time when we recap the very last sequel, Return To Sleepaway Camp. Which is a Very Special Sequel for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Felissa Rose makes an awesome return. Stay tuned for that.

"Oh, I'm A Happy Camper," or Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers (1988)

As promised, we are about to continue our Sleepaway Camp posting bonanza with Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers. I know, I'm totes excited too!!!
Now, I personally find the direction they went in with Sleepaway Camp 2 a little...odd. The first one was campy, yes. (No pun intended, haha) But the sequel really ran with it and turned it up to eleven. In fact, I'd be tempted to call this a comedy, and I'm not entirely sure that wasn't the intention. Nevertheless, it is regarded as something of a cult classic, and while it's not my favorite in the series, I still like it and respect it as such. But anyway, let's get on with it. Starting with that poster above. Who in the hell IS that? It's not Angela, it's not any of the campers, it's just some chick. Although, I have to say that the fact that she's carrying Jason's hockey mask and Freddy's glove in her backpack is amusing. I like it ok, I just think it would have been a more clever poster if Angela were wearing the backpack. This poster is used for most of the DVD releases too, Unfortunately my copy is the Wal-Mart bargain bin bootleg version, and its cover looks like this:

This cover sucks ass and nothing can make up for it, not even the fact that they kept Freddy's glove. Anyway...

Sleepaway Camp 2 starts off with a bunch of campers sitting around a fire telling scary stories. Eventually one of them is all "I have an OMG TRUE!!! story" and launches into a recap of Sleepaway Camp. How cliche, and didn't Friday The 13th Part 2 already do this? I'll give Sleepaway Camp 2 credit though for not actually showing us the last 15 minutes of the first movie, unlike F13P2. (Hello, if I wanted to see what happened in part 1 I would be watching it). But I digress. The campers speculate as to what happened to Angela after part 1, and somebody cracks that (s)he's in Hollywood playing Jo on The Facts Of Life. LMAO. Which is amusing to me because Pamela Springsteen, who replaced Felissa Rose as Angela in this movie, was totally a member of Tootie's Jermaine Jackson fan club in that one episode, and wow it's completely sad that I remember that.

Anyways, we get a few minutes of backstory explaining that Angela's had a complete sex change operation since the last movie and is now all girl. And apparently has had a total plastic surgery makeover. For serious, Pamela and Felissa look absolutely nothing like each other, and I demand realism from my crappy 80s slashers. Hrrmph.

Meanwhile, a mysterious counseler has told the recapper to stfu and go back to her cabin, and follows her back through the woods. Who is that masked woman? Why, it's Angela! And she's pissed that this gel-haired 20-something 80s teen has told her backstory. Angela is all "I should send you home" and gel-haired 20 something 80s teen is all "bring it" and runs off. She gets lost of course, and Angela sneaks up behind her and offs her with a blunt board. Body count: 1

By the way, I have the crappiest DVD copy of this thing ever pressed. There's no way it's not a bootleg. In the kill scene I just described, there's no music at all. I'm pretty sure the first time I ever saw it on FLIX like 5 years ago, there was music underscoring this scene. Also, it looks like the actual kill has been edited. We see Angela swing the board and then it immediately fades to black. No screams, no blood, no impact at all. Since the only DVD copy I've ever watched is this one, I have absolutely no idea if this is normal. But anyhoo...

Opening credits roll. They are completely silent and there's definitely supposed to be a rock song over them. This is my DVD player's fault, because like 6 months ago me and a friend watched it on her DVD player and the song was there clear as day. So this is both an annoyance and slightly amusing. Silent credits are funny. I'm sure the song is rockin'. Moving on.

Angela blows her little counseler's whistle and wakes up her campers and future victims. Right away we can tell who the camp slut is, as she is the only camper sleeping topless with her boobies just hangin' out. I'm sorry, who DOES that in a group setting? I could see maybe, MAYBE sleeping with a bra on. And only if it's like 118 degrees out and would be uncomfortable to sleep in a shirt. But completely topless? Nope. Doesn't happen anywhere ever, except maybe Europe. And certainly not at a camp where others' comfort levels would be a consideration. Angela agrees with me and is all "Cover up, ho."

By the way, all the campers in this movie are named after members of the Brat Pack. I caught a Demi, Ally, Mare, Molly, and Phoebe (the chick who was just killed) from the girls' cabin, and I know there's a Rob, Charlie, Emilio, Judd, and Anthony on the boys' side. This amuses me greatly, but not as much as the naming scheme in Part 3. Just you wait.

Angela takes a walk with camp owner Uncle John (HA!) and laments the fact that she had to "send (Phoebe) home." The whole "I sent them home" thing isn't annoying NOW, but it's going to get annoying really fast since that's the only excuse Angela can come up with for every. single. camper. disappearance.

Breakfast at the mess hall. Ally the Ho engages in a little good natured bitchery at the expense of the camp stoners, known as the Shit Sisters. Attention soon turns to the girl who shall be set up to be the Final Girl from now on. You may know her as the girl who changed Mike's grade so he could go on the school ski trip in that one Growing Pains episode. You may also know her as Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez's younger sister. Ironic, considering the naming scheme, amiright? But in this movie, she's known as Molly. Everyone asks Molly if she "gets stoned" and she's like "No." This is the movie's way of saying "OMG you guys she's so clean and pure! She's totes going to be the Final Girl!!!!!!eleventy!!!"

This lovely conversation is interrupted by Uncle John introducing Angela as the counseler of the week. This news doesn't go over well with the campers. Angela giddily takes the stage and calls Molly and Ally up to join her in a rousing rendition of the Happy Camper Song. This Angela's incessant talking kinda makes me miss Felissa and her patented Stares Of Stareyness. And now I have that goddamn song stuck in my head. Thanks, Angela. I kid. I have the Happy Camper song on my iPod.
Outside the mess hall, the head boys counseler T.C and his astounding mullet attempt to hit on Angela, and they both are rebuffed. Angela's like "Uuuuum I'll call you kthxbye" and TC goes "How are you gonna call me? I don't have a phone." LMAO. I don't know why that line amuses me so much. But it do.

Molly and her boy Sean are playing in the pool. They get out and start talking about their families and stuff. Sean's parents are divorced, he hates his stepdad, too bad so sad. Molly's all "I have so many brothers and sisters people call us the Brady Bunch. Giggle giggle." How original. Meanwhile, Ally apparently can't stand to see anyone but herself getting male attention, so she swims over and does her best to show off her boobs to Sean. He ignores her and goes off with Molly to go get a drink. *Does best Nelson Muntz impression* HA-HA! He totally didn't fall for your skank tricks.

Cut to Angela's feet walking with purpose through the woods. There must be a problem with muted sound effects on this DVD like whoah, because nothing crunches under her shoes as she walks. It's off-putting. Anyway, the Shit Sisters are out there getting high. Not only that....they're bastardizing the Happy Camper Song with obscene lyrics! And one of them is making out with a dude! Oh no you dii-iint! Angela, are you going to stand for such blasphemous shenanigans?

Nope. Observe in the above picture Shit Sister #1 coming face to face with the charred skull of Shit Sister #2. Body Count: 2 Angela's got SS #1 tied to a barbecue thingy, and as she pours gasoline over SS1's head she admonishes her for being such a dirty junkie ho. Then she lights a match and throws it on top. Unfortunately, this looks like another edited kill because I got no gore whatsoever. Match is thrown, cut to next scene. GRR. Anyway, Body Count: 3

A bratty little imp minion is bitching (with her words horrifically un-synched to her lip movements) that she wants to GO HOME, DAMMIT! Angela is all "I think I can arrange that." Are we preparing to up the body count? Huh? Huh? Are we???? Nope. Little bitch gets to actually go home. Dammit Angela, she SASSED you! You're losing your touch. Don't let this happen again. As they watch the car pull away, Angela tells Uncle John that she "sent the Shote sisters home this morning." And Uncle John is all "Uuuuh, yeah you don't have the authority to do that, talk to me first before you do that." And Angela is all "You mean, like I JUST DID?" Hahahahaha. Snap. I like you, Angela. You're a good egg.

So, that night Angela has a counseler's meeting (or so she says) and leaves her heathen campers unsupervised in the cabin. The boys totally raid the cabin while she's out and steal the girls' undies. Too bad they were too dumbass to wait until she was out of earshot, cuz Angela walks in on the ruckus. Strangely, other than screaming at the boys to get out, she's eerily calm about it. So the girls concoct a plan to get the boys (and their underwear) back later on in the night. Unfortunately for them, Angela walks in on their shenanigans right as Mare is flashing her boobs to everybody. Methinks Mare is doomed to be Angela's next victim.

Angela and Mare are in a car with Mare bitching about how she wants to go home. Angela says that even though Mare acted like a cheap whore by flashing her boobs, Angela thinks she didn't know any better. She gives Mare a shot at redemption if she'll only say sorry. Mare is like "die bitch" so Angela reaches down and retrieves a drill. Bye bye, Mare. You're being sent home. (And once again, there are no sound effects on this DVD. Nothing more hilarious than death by silent drill) Body Count: 4

Breakfast time in the mess hall again. A bunch of boys are concocting a plan to scare Angela at that night's camp-out. That'll go over well, I'm so sure. TC and his mullet take the stage and announces that the following items have gone missing: a camp sweatshirt, a beach towel, a first-aid kit, a pair of Ray-Bans, a saw, some rope, TC's car battery, an electric drill, 10 pairs of panties, 3 bras, and 4 jock straps. May as well go ahead and tell you Angela took all those things, except possibly the panties, bras, and jock straps. Like you didn't know.

Later that day, Molly is taking a walk in the woods and comes across Angela humming to herself by an abandoned cabin. They have a heart to heart that's actually pretty sweet. Molly confesses to Angela that she likes Sean but that skank bitch Ally likes him also, and she's sooooo experienced. Angela agrees that Ally is a ho-biscuit and insinuates that she's probably full of STDs. Then she tells Molly there's nothing wrong with being a non-ho and they hug. Molly is SO going to be the Final Girl, yalls!

A bunch of campers are playing that game where you're blindfolded and reach your hand into a bunch of containers containing things like peeled grapes and everybody tells you it's eyeballs. When the campers reach Angela's container she's like "These are dead teenager brains!" When asked what's really in there, she replies "Dead teenager brains." That moment always makes me LOL. Meanwhile, the plan to scare Angela is coming along swimmingly. The brilliant scheme involves a Jason mask and a Freddy glove, both made out of paper mache it looks like. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That's fantastic.

Angela is on Catch People Doing Stupid Shit patrol. She discovers two 12 year old boys in their cabin looking at polaroids of topless chicks they've been collecting. Jesus Christ, how many of these girls have been walking around flashing their goodies at this camp? What is this, Girls Gone Wild? Keep your shirts on, girls. Really. The worst of it for them is that they've captured a picture of Angela in the middle of changing her shirt. Ooooh boy, now she's PISSED. I'd watch your backs, fellas. Angela shows the pictures to TC and all he does is admire them. Tool. Angela is all "I never thought pornography was funny!" Ha.

So, it's finally camp-out time. Molly and Ally and Demi are hanging out around the campfire and here's yet another instance of how shitty this DVD is. Demi says "Turn that song up!" The only problem is that my DVD has no music in this scene. Zip. Zero. Which actually makes it hilarious, because she's bopping her head to absolute silence. Demi, you crazy. Meanwhile, Judd and Anthony are trying to scare Angela with their crappy paper mache. They're hiding out in the woods waiting for her and acting like idiots. Angela shows up and totally owns them both. With no sound effects, naturally. Le sigh. Body Count: 6

While all this is going on, Ally is in the bathroom cabin with some dude, and seriously....this is THE most hilarious sex scene ever recorded onto film. There's like 10 minutes (not really, but it feels like it) of just their feet moving around while they struggle out of their clothing awkwardly, and like the only thing that happens is a lot of stomach-kissing. It's the funniest thing ever. Angela, of course, shows up to rain on the parade, and Ally is like "I got cramps!" LMFAO. Tell me Ally, would you usually bring lit candles and a radio into the bathroom if you had cramps? Angela can see right through your little ho schemes. But she won't exact her revenge on you. Yet.

Next morning, Molly and Sean are playing a cutesy game of catch. When Sean leaves, Ally waltzes up and is all "WTF Molly you told Angela I was whoring around in the bathroom" and Molly goes "Eh?" and then Ally lays on the bitchery by informing her that Sean sucks in bed. Bitch. Molly goes into her cabin to boo-hoo about it and whines to Angela whilst Ally goes off to screw some guy in the woods, and only thinks to ask AFTER the act "You don't have AIDS or anything, do you?" Great timing for that question. Really, bravo.

The time has come for Angela to exact her revenge on Ally. She lures her into the abandoned cabin in the woods by forging a note from Sean. Angela is all "I can't believe you fell for it, you're dumber than I thought." Haha, Angela I heart you. Ally meets her end by being shoved into the shitty toilet and covered in leeches. Loverly. That might have been the best death yet. Body Count: 7

During a card game in the rec hall, Sean reveals that he OMG almost attended Camp Arawak the same year Angela went on her first killing spree. How neatly tied together! He can't recall her girl name but can remember her real name (Peter). How convenient.

Demi wanders into the girls cabin where Angela is playing her guitar. Dumbass Demi then launches into a monologue about how she's just spent her evening calling the houses of every single camper who had been "sent home" the whole movie and ALL their parents said they were still at camp, and isn't it strange, and for the love of God, STFU. And while she's talking Angela goes into the next room and hilariously looks for a suitable murder weapon and it's really adorable. And still Demi keeps running her yap. Shut UP before Angela kills you.....too late. Angela strangled you to death. Body Count: 8

While Angela is trying to hide Demi's body, one of the other girls barges in, and Angela has had just enough of this shit. She gets "sent home" via stabbing without sound effects. Body Count: 9

Angela has a trippy-ass dream that night that she sings the Happy Camper Song slowed down and there's a montage in there consisting of kill scenes we've already watched. And you know what else is in that montage? SOUND EFFECTS! Sweet Jesus.

Next morning, Uncle John decides he has had absolutely enough of this "sending campers home" shit of hers, and Angela is fired. As in Get Your Ass Out Before Noon fired. Gasp! Say it aint so! She goes crying into the girls cabin and tells Molly before leaving to "get her stuff." Molly enlists Sean and they go to the abandoned cabin in the woods to try to comfort Angela. Sweet, but unwise. Very, very unwise. They might have been fine if not for Sean's dumbassery. He opens the door to the cabin and discovers the bodies of everyone who's been "sent home." Angela ties up the both of 'em. TC finds them and gets a face full of acid from his own car battery. His screams of angony are silent, of course. Body Count: 10

Then there's the Scooby-Doo unmasking where Sean is all "You're Angela Baker! It was youuuuuuu!" No shit, Sherlock. And she would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids. Angela is all "Um yeah I spent the last four years in therapy and I'm totally cured, you all just deserved it." Then she whacks him on the head. HAHA. Angela, I wish to be your friend. Body Count: 11

Molly blacks out from the trauma, and when she comes to Angela is all maternal and wants to feed her. Then she points out Sean's head inside a broken TV and Molly screams a (silent) scream. Angela leaves to drag another random body (Body Count: 12) into the cabin, which gives Molly just enough time to break her ties and whack Angela out cold. Nice. My girl don't stay down for long though, nope. They have a (silent, sound effects-less) chase through the woods. This DVD sucks so much ass. Anyway, Molly falls off a cliff and we're led to believe she's dead.
Meanwhile, another counseler has discovered the bodies of the two polaroid-takers, Uncle John, and some other dude. Body Count: 16 Then Angela surprises her and sends her home. Body Count: 17

I must say, this movie has got a DECENT body count. That's what I like to see. So anyhow, Angela hitches a ride from a woman in a truck and gets all holier-than-thou when the woman starts smoking. That bitch. So she kills her and steals the truck. Nicely handled, Angela. Body Count: 18

Well, Molly aint dead. She comes to and goes running for help in the street. She frantically flags down the first truck that passes (uh-oh..)

The movie leaves it up in the air, but I think we can safely assume Molly buys it at this point. Body Count: 19?

Roll the credits. Silently, naturally. God, I hate this DVD.

And that, my friends, was Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers. A wonderful little slice of an era gone by, with a decent amount of kills and enough comic relief to make it rewatchable once in awhile at the very least. Next time, we tackle Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland. You don't wanna miss that one, trust me.