Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982)
For those wondering, yes, that is one of the two real poster designs for this film. You rarely see this one for some reason, though I kind of like it. It makes Jason look like he's on steroids, which could be a very good reason he seems so superhuman. Or maybe Mrs. Vorhees was subject to secret German medical tests during WWII, but that doesn't matter right now. Let's talk about Friday the 13th Part III. Let's start with what is the most awesomely horrible version of the theme song. (It should be heard in discos across the nations. I love it so much I have it on my mp3 player!)
Wasn't that just beautiful?! Now, if you're wondering why the titles are filmed like that... Okay, none of you are really wondering that, as everyone knows this was originally released in 3-D. In the early 80s, there was a brief resurgence of popularity in 3-D films. There was Jaws 3-D, Amityville 3-D... And that actually may be all the horror ones, because the craze lasted about a year and a half. It was a horrible idea in hind-sight, especially with home video, which could not replicate the effect at the time, coming into popularity. Also note that none of the films in the craze got good reviews. Out of the three I named, I think this one actually did the best, and critics hated the series so... Anyway, back then, 3-D was showed off by having things conspicuously come out of the screen towards the audience to showcase the effect. Broom handles, ping pong paddles, hands, that sort of thing. Of course in this film, it's more like harpoons, eyeballs, machetes, a striking snake. So I would bet it would have been pretty exciting. Sadly, even on the new blu-rays, they don't use modern 3-D technology to show this. No, you're stuck with the red-blue polarized glasses and a picture on the DVD that's less than stellar due to how that type of 3-D is done. It's not great.
Neither is the film, for that matter, especially when compared to the last two films. It's hard to explain why, as it had the same crew and same director as the great second film had. I think I know one reason though. After the many times they had to re-submit new cuts of the film to the MPAA on part 2, the director Steve Miner, decided to tamp things down before they sent the film in. And indeed, apparently they had to only send this one in once or twice before they got an R rating. There's also a noticeable downturn in the quality of the acting on this one. Everyone seems to be a bit more over the top, and a few characters are intensely annoying.
The plot of this one is a bit different from the last two. This time there's no new camp. This time it's just friends hanging out by the lake for a while. Now, one of the girls is a bit apprehensive about this, as she was almost molested by a deranged guy a few years back in those same woods. Also, this film takes place right after Part 2 did. It's just on another part of the lake. In the beginning of the film, a couple is watching the news about what happened in the last installment. So really, this is Saturday the 14th.
Now, this is the film where Jason finally gets his mask, which has stayed with him through all of the sequels. However, that wasn't what was meant to happen. This was actually supposed to end the series, and the hockey mask was only chosen because when they were doing a lighting check, the only mask they had available was a hockey one. They liked the look so well, they went with it. So there you go; serendipity. And once again, the series doesn't take itself too seriously. This is one of the funnier entries as well.
Seriously, I have to say, the movie just isn't that memorable other than for the hilariously bad theme music, the bad compositions due to it originally being in 3-D, and it being the first film with the mask. I watched it for the 5th time in my life just a few days ago and honestly can't remember much about it. I remember that the character of Shelly annoyed me so badly that I was happy with his death (he's the reason Jason got the hockey mask), I remember a guy's skull getting crushed so that his eye pops out towards the camera (and that you can see the rod it's on), and I remember the last 5 minutes being pretty good. However, the last 5-15 minutes of any Friday film is usually pretty good. It's the part of the movie where the last one standing finds all the dead bodies of their friends strung up all over the place while the killer chases them. It's fun! Out of the original run of films, which I count as 1-4, this one is the worst. Still, there's much worse to come later.
So the film went on to make a better profit than the second film did. (About $15 million more, actually.) However, this was on top of a budget $1 million more than the second film, mostly due to the 3-D cameras, so it actually made more along the lines of $13.5 million more. I will guess that a lot of it is just due to people wanting to see a slasher film in 3-D, which I can't blame them for. It's probably one of the best genres for 3-D if you do it right, and they DID do it right for this type of film. The technology just sucked. However, Paramount still wanted to kill the series... Just one more film... Then we're really going to kill him... Really. We'll even call it The Final Chapter! Stay tuned for that story.
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