Customer Reviews

Friday the 13th, Part 3

5 star:		(114)
4 star:		(76)
3 star:		(71)
2 star:		(39)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

If Paramount's A-movie franchise was Star Trek, then their B-movie franchise would definitely be Friday The 13th. A total of eight were made and, with the exception of '83, there was a Friday The 13th for every year in the Eighties, with the TV series debuting in '87.

They were tacky, badly made and infrequently showed any professionalism, or dynamic filmmaking. But they sure had their moments and Part 3 is definitely the best of the first four, Part 5 being the joker in the pack and 6-8 the second instalment of the Jason Voorhees legacy.

Apparently, not getting enough of butchering teenagers with the first sequel, director Steve Miner returns for more unlucky day murders. While his first outing was almost the exact same as the original, only with a different killer, Part 3 reinvents the franchise and totally solidifies Jason as a horror movie icon.

Chris (Dana Kimmel) has had a difficult past few years and she decides to spend a long weekend at Higgins Haven with her friends. Too bad for them that Jason (Richard Brooker) is lurking in the woods. He and Chris have had a scuffle in the past and she's afraid to go out there alone.

Her friends are an unusual bunch. There are a couple of stoners, Shelly, a fat kid who just wants to be loved (Larry Zerner), a pregnant friend (Tracie Savage) and her hunky squeeze (Paul Kratka). These are not the typical goofball sex-mad teenagers of the early Eighties. For some reason, the writers have made them somewhat subdued and realistic. They seriously want a quiet weekend - no partying, no loud music. It helps that we like them, because in most other occasions we can't wait for them to get slaughtered.

And they aren't the only ones in trouble. A non-threatening biker gang plan to cause havoc at Higgins Haven, because Shelly knocked over their scooters, and end up regretting it. If anything, they make for some light comedy - intentional, or not.

Halfway through, Shelly pulls a joke on the girl he fancies. He leaps out of the water wearing a hockey mask and brandishing a harpoon. Five minutes later Jason gets his hands on them. And ever since, the image of the hockey mask has been the trademark of the series.

In every other sequel, Jason is a walking monolith. [...], show Michael Myers a thing or two about the art of teenage massacre and somehow be able to maintain his cool and make it all seems effortless. This is the only time you will see him for what he really is - a retarded hillbilly. He evens smiles! Twice!!

Miner would return later to the same location in Lake Placid. Here, he successfully portrays Crystal Lake as a tranquil, peaceful place and manages, in the final scenes, to infuse it with atmospheric excitement, all without the use of rain, or lightning.

It wouldn't be hard to make a sequel superior to the original Friday The 13th. Miner failed with Part 2, but excels in Part 3. It has a lighter tone and different feel from the others. In fact, it shouldn't be viewed as a horror film at all. It's an adventure movie, set in the woods, with one of the best villains ever.

What I felt before was a quite mediocre entry in the series(speaking relatively, of course), I now feel is one of the most superior. What makes the difference? Widescreen. Steve Miner is a master of the form(see the underrated House or Halloween:H20) and injects this sequel with a lot of atmosphere and tension which was not as evident on previous pan-and-scan video releases of the film. For instance, consider the scene where Chris relays her previous experience with Jason to her boyfriend Rick. On video, it had always appeared as if the couple had just stopped at a random spot in the woods to talk. In widescreen, however, the entire left side of the picture is taken up by the side of a cabin and by a drainpipe spilling water throughout the scene. This one small detail adds a whole other layer to the atmosphere of the scene. You also get to see a lot more of Higgin's Haven and the surrounding woods and lake in widescreen. Also, as previously mentioned, the showdown/chase scene that climaxes this film is amazingly suspenseful, especially for an early 80's slasher sequel. Widescreen allows you to see Jason running up along the side of the barn as Chris enters. Creepy!

One last note about the DVD:

For years, Friday fans have lamented the lost death scene footage excised by the MPAA before the films were released to theaters. Well, apparently someone in the DVD department at Paramount is a fan, for Chili's death scene via firepoker in the Friday 3 DVD is the unrated cut. Wherein previous video versions, there is only a shot of the firepoker exiting her back, in the DVD version, a relatively long sideshot has been inserted showing Jason plunging the firepoker all the way through her and then slightly twisting it. This extra shot is worth the price of the DVD. Hopefully unrated death scenes will show up on future Friday releases also. I'd love to see some of the unrated footage from Friday 6 and 7.

Getting old is hell. It's true. You see, I'm old enough to have seen Friday the 13th Part 3 in the theater back in 1982. There were a handful of pretty bad 3-D movies made during that brief resurgence of the fad. Believe it or not, this was actually the best of them. The film took full advantage of the process, poking every possible object, body part, etc. at the screen. All in polarized 3-D. Polarized? Well, I don't know all the technical details, but the glasses were tinted gray, instead of the old-style red and blue that was used during the early 1950's heyday of 3-D movies. A polarized 3-D movie doesn't just have depth; things literally pop off the screen and, at times, would appear to be inches from your face.

Sadly, this 3-D release of Friday the 13th Part 3 is NOT the same picture I saw all those years ago.

Apparently, the polarized process can't be recreated for the home screen (not yet, anyway. . .if you'd told me ten years ago I'd be able to store thousands of songs on a gadget the size of a cigarette lighter, I'd have called you crazy). So what we have here is a sort of "remixed" cut of the film, with the old-school glasses. And all the headaches those involve.

Disappointments aside, it's not a complete waste. The film itself was made to have depth (as in the third dimension of depth, not the philosophical kind!), and many scenes translate fairly well. The more notorious shock scenes (SPOILERS AHEAD) involving a spear gun and an eyeball rushing toward the camera come pretty close to duplicating the original format's intensity. Objects in the background often suffer some blurriness--hence the possibility of headaches--and the print itself is surprisingly grainy in spots.

The film itself is no better or worse than any of the FRIDAY sequels. But if you were lucky enough to have the film as intended on the big screen, you will almost certainly be disappointed with this presentation. I'm glad 3-D films are making a comeback; I just hope someone is able to improve the process for home viewing.

Great movie for slasher fans, as this installment is definitely one of the best of the series. It beats the first two hands down and it was the one where Jason finally pulled on that infamous hockey mask and the Jason we all know and love comes to life. This film benefits from a decent script with some decent acting (O.K. so the acting was abit rubbish), as well as the fact that the body count is higher and the death scenes are much more elaborate. It seems more time and effort went in to the script especially for the murders, its the first one where Jason displays his inhuman strength as you'll see during the hanging scene or him crushing some poor guy's head like a melon. Also this film was originally shot in 3d, I'm not sure but it seemed like a sudden craze during the early 80's where this 3D gimmick was seen in alot of theaters. The glasses in the DVD package work just fine but you have to turn out all the lights for it to really work and become fully immersed in the experience.

Directly after the events of Friday the 13th Part 2, Jason (Richard Brooker) goes to a store, kills the owners and gets a change of clothes. Chris (Dana Kimmell) is taking some of her friends (including a weird hippie/stoner couple that look abit out of place among the younger group), to her family's cabin in the woods for a weekend of partying. Chris was attacked by a mute and deformed man in the woods two years earlier and has not been back since. She's going on this trip to confront her demons about this incident (if she only knew, she would've just let her demons behind and stayed at home). She left town those two years ago and left her boyfriend Rick (Paul Kratka) and he's also meeting the group at the family cabin to try and reconnect with Chris. But what Chris doesn't know is that the weirdo that attacked her in the woods was Jason and he's also returned to the family cabin to carry out his killing spree. This time he takes the familiar hockey mask from Shelly to hide his accursed ugliness and it would become the symbol of horror for the next decade (kill, kill, kill, kill,haaaa) ;-).

The 3-D version makes its home video debut here and you get some glasses with Jason logos to watch it with (just a tip, try and get the room as dark as you can for it to work right). There are some scares that worked better with the 3-D process though and some that don't. One that doesn't is a snake hiding in the rabbit pen because you can see the strings holding the rubber snake and one that probably wowed the audience back then was when Jason squeezes a fellow's head and his eyeball pops out towards the screen. Shelly is a budding "actor" and brings his makeup kit and provides some red herring scares, he was the annoying character that nobody liked and played alot of pranks. There's also a Tommy Chong dopehead/hippie wannabe to provide more comedy relief, the only thing that's missing is crazy Ralph. Steve Miner also continued with the series from part two and he definitely left a good impression as his directing skills were tight and showed some really menacing shots of Jason especially towards the last half of the film when he comes storming out of the barn. The final-girl showdown in the third act is actually very good and very tense, infact it's the best in the series. And Jason does seem most real here (unlike a stoic machine-like demon in future sequels) as he displays more than a few emotions including an evil mocking smile, screaming in pain when he's stabbed twice and obvious anger when he can't find something.

Friday the 13th Part 3 is presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. The special features really only include the 2 minute trailer. I guess you'd have to count that they do put a copy of the 3-D version on the disc and give you two 3-D glasses (you wouldn't want to watch it by yourself ;-)) to view it with. However, the great documentaries and interviews on parts 1 and 2 made me hope for more of the same on Part 3. They don't even continue the "Lost Tales from Camp Blood" here either. Somewhat disappointing considering the effort put into the first two films, shouldn't be called a deluxe edition in my opinion. Anyway this film was great, it had some cheesy but fun 3-D effects and arguably the most realistic presentation of Jason, and perhaps the best climactic battle which all infuse Friday the 13th Part 3 as one of the more interesting films of the series. Highly recommended and two thumbs up!.

Length:: 3:42 Mins

I don't know why it is that 3-D looked so good on the big screen in the 80's and I don't know why it went away or if it has even advanced significantly since returning in a big way this past decade since I don't have an Imax theater in my town. What I do know is that I was extremely disappointed when I attempted to watch "Friday the 13th 3-D" in it's original form on my home DVD player. I also don't know why they'd even bother releasing such a thing when the results are so awful. Scratch that. I do know. Having fond memories of 3-D films growing up in the 80's I was intensely curious to see how the format would translate to the small screen, and I'd purchased the first two Friday the 13th films based on their classic status and the cool packaging and new special features. I bought the 3rd on impulse in spite of the extremely conspicuous lack of any special features primarily because I really wanted to see a 3-D film in my home. And that's how they getcha. How they got away with calling this a "Deluxe Edition" is a mystery.

I remember Part 3 as being my favorite Friday and it's still a solid slasher to be sure. The ending is still pretty terrifying and my favorite Jason kill ever is in this film. It's also the very first time Jason Vorhees ever donned his now-iconic hockey mask. So for Slasher fanatics, this is indeed a landmark film. It's too bad that they skimped on the bonus material in favor of a marketing ploy that did little other then tick me off. I'm also not a fan of padding the running time by opening with the entire climax of the last film. It eats up running time and that is all it does. It doesn't even make any sense unless you saw the first two films anyways so why bother?

Anyways, you've got your group of sex-crazed smart-mouthed teenagers, brief shots of gore and brutality, teasing nudity, and of course the echoing "tch-tch-tch ah-ah-ah-ah" that I now wish I'd thought to open the video segment with. Jason fans will enjoy this film as much as ever, but again, don't buy it for the 3-D. I tried watching the film from afar, up close, laying down in front of it, cross-eyed, walking on my hands (not really), and every other way and it just looked like hell any way I tried. Perhaps a larger screen (which would have to be massive) or blu-ray would help, perhaps not. But for some reason the 3-D version of this film is not even a little bit watchable in my house. Too bad. This DVD could have earned another star with some of the cool features like the "Lost Tales From Camp Blood" short films featuring bonus Jason kills, or the interviews and convention footage like the previous two Friday re-releases had, but we get nothing but a broken 3-D version. Screw you too, Paramount.

The Friday the 13th series is my favorite horror movie series, and Part 3 is my favorite. It has all the elements of a good horror movie, which I'll get to in a minute, and Jason I think is the creepiest he ever was.

*This was the first horror movie I ever saw. It was on TV and I watched a part of it at age 7 or 8 while my parents weren't watching me :). I saw the shower part in the movie and needless to say I didn't take a shower for two weeks. I'd go in the bathroom and turn on the water, but I wouldn't get in because I was afraid I'd open the shower curtain and get an axe in the head. :)

I know the chances of you reading my review out of 217 other peoples reviews, and I know that people have given this movie pretty high marks, as well as low. But I think this is the best movie out the series and here's why.

I always look for three things in horror movies. The first is, is the movie well made and is the acting up to par. This movie looks creepy. It's kind of dark many times which just adds to the feel of it. It has that 1980's feel which really gives a horror movie an edge in my book. The scenes are all well put together and the directing is right up there. The acting is pretty good for the most part. Sometimes Cris is a little unbelievable in the beginning but she is the prettiest girl out of the whole series. The rest of the actors do a great job especially Jason.

This is the movie that started the whole hockey mask mania. In the later movies, Jason got more of a personality, especially once Kane Hodder took over, but they kindof ruined the character for me. Jason is supposed to be a mindless emotionless killer, which is what makes him so scary. When they gave him emotions and facial expressions in part 7 and Fred Vs J, they ruined the character for me. In this movie, Jason walks creepy, takes his time and gives a great performance. Nice job.... uh..... guy.

The next thing I look for is are the death sequences well done and believable. If you've read my other reviews you know nothing turns me off faster than an elaborate and stupid death sequences. In this film they do it right. They are all quick, show some blood but not too much and all could have really happened. With the exception of the spear gun through the eye, but I'm sure Jason is an excellent marksman.........I'm not going to argue with him.

The last thing I look for in a horror movie is a great ending. I thought number two was pretty decent but had a lot of mistakes in it. Some things in the movie just don't make sense, especially the end. What dog was in the woods if that other white fluff ball came back??? but anyway....

Part 3 really brings the first movie into play. It's a nice reverse at the end, without giving too much away. I always felt that this should have been the sequel, instead of two because of the way it ended.

All in All this is a great horror movie. I would rank it number one in the series, with four next, then one, then probably the others, with the exception of seven. It's the first horror movie I ever saw, and it will always hold a special knife-hole in my heart. Alright so that wasn't funny, but this movie is great. My favorite scene is the fuse box when the guy gets the lights to go on, but who's behind him????? CHI CHI CHI MAH MAH MAH

First, let me preface this review by saying that if you don't like slasher/horror flicks to begin with, then you sure as hell aren't going to like "Friday the 13th part 3", but if you are a fan of the genre then you are in for a treat with this one. Still, with that being said, some horror movie fans and critics alike would disagree with my assertion that "Friday the 13th part 2" and/or "Friday the 13th part 3" are the best of the "Friday the 13th" series and those people would clearly be wrong. The acting and scripts for parts 2 & 3 are without a doubt superior to the other movies. Steve Miner did an outstanding job with both Friday the 13th part 2 and 3, which are also the most dynamic movies of the series, and while one could legitimately argue that part 2 is technically superior than part 3 in the sense of being scary (it's a tough call, but Jason with the hood and his style in part 2 was scarier in my opinion), I think that part 3 has a little extra something that makes it a little more interesting than part 2. I should say that I think the score is even better for "Friday the 13th part 3" with the advent of that funky-scary music that we get in the opening credits of this brilliant horror flick.

At any rate, part 3 starts out recapping what happened at the end of "Friday the 13th part 2". Immediately following the part 2 murders, the audience is introduced to a very attractive young lady named Chris who has had a traumatic and mysterious confrontation with Jason Voorhees. Chris is trying to overcome her fear of this past experience by going back to the "scene of the incident" if you will. Hence, you have the plot of this movie in a somewhat different setting than the other Friday 13th flicks. I like this underlying theme of the mysterious attack by Jason Voorhees against Chris...I think it really sets the tone and provides an interesting and refreshing perspective for this series.

Chris and her friends return to the cabin location and Chris tries to deal with her fears and her memory of the horrible attack. I thought the addition of the barn was a terrific arena for horror with this type of movie...you have it all in this one: the woods, the barn and the cabins...great setting for what is a great slasher flick. Meanwhile, while Chris and friends are arriving at the cabin, Jason has just finished a massive killing spree and is hungry for more blood, and of course, Chris in her crew are most definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In "Friday the 13th part 3", we have more dynamic characters and better character development in general; this is where part 3 is slightly better than part 2, although I did like Paul and Ginny as well. For instance, in part 3, Shelley provides an interesting character as he is a weird kind of fellow with an inferiority complex. He constantly engages in morbid-like pranks with gore in which he tricks everyone into thinking he has been brutally murdered. This sets the tone for later of course when Jason actually kills Shelley and it is a really great scene when Shelley is finally discovered dead for real. Also, I really loved the advent of the biker crew...I thought the little altercation between Shelley and the bikers was an interesting and fun subplot. The actors who played Ali, Fox and Loco were outstanding. In fact, Ali is a dangerous man in his own right and provides Jason with some combative competition...okay, not much competition but he's better than the girls he ends up losing to in the end. I must admit that my favorite part of the movie is when Fox is swinging on that rope on the second floor of that barn and Loco reprimands her while she is having such a good time and then when he looks back, Fox aint there no more...I guess she found Jason somewhat more formidable than that little girl she bullied in the grocery mart.

Anyway, Jason disposes of his prey in the usual fashion with some creativity. In fact, I really love the murder scene when that guy is always walking with his hands and eventually runs into Jason. OUCH!!! But, by and large, the acting and script for this movie is just superior to the others...I give "Friday the 13th part 3" a slight but distinct edge over "Friday the 13th part 2" from that perspective. Steve Miner did a brilliant job with both movies and both are slasher classics and must own DVDs for horror movie fans.

As an interesting point of trivia, Jason donnes the notorious hockey mask in "Friday the 13th part 3"...it belonged to Shelley and was rudely stolen from him after his gruesome demise.

"Friday the 13th part 3" is one of the very best slasher flicks ever and is an absolute must own for all serious and sophisticated horror movie fans. Anyone who thinks this is bad slasher flick obviously has no idea what he/she is talking about. Enjoy Jason's finest and buy "Friday the 13th part 3"...you'll be glad you did as you can watch this one over and over again...a solid 4 STAR slasher-horror flick.

I totally adore the Friday the 13th movies. I've been watching them since I was a kid. They are filled with eerie suspense and lots of gore and some of the movies contain good tunes (Alice Cooper.) This one however, seems to stick with me the most. It's my personal favorite of the bunch. Jason gets the hockey mask for the 1st time in this movie. The kills are REALLY good and OMG at the end, ewwwww. Love it!!

FRIDAY THE 13th PART III

(USA - 1982)

Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 (3-Depix)
Theatrical soundtrack: Mono

Though not without entertainment value, the third entry in this long-running series (initiated by FRIDAY THE 13th in 1980) is no more than disposable fluff, reliant on its 3-D gimmick to draw a mass audience. It serves no other purpose. Whereas the first two movies established the basic premise (the villain in part 2 takes up where his/her predecessor left off in part 1), "Part III" doesn't advance the scenario at all, merely restages the same plot as before: Teens take a weekend trip into the woods and are targeted for destruction by the seemingly unstoppable Jason.

The plot is negligible, the characters conform to stereotype, and the constant stream of violent murders seems even more senseless than before. In fact, the indiscriminate nature of Jason's victims allows consistency to fall by the wayside, thereby signalling the film's status as little more than a mindless thrill-machine, the victim of lazy scriptwork by Martin Kitrosser and Carol Watson. To be fair, however, it's doubtful that a radical change in the basic scenario would have been acceptable to contemporary audiences. In 1982, these simple thrills were more than enough to ring the box-office bell, and woe betide any producer who dared to mess with a winning formula!

The best efforts of sophomore director Steve Miner (also responsible for FRIDAY THE 13th PART 2, 1981) are compromised by two important factors: First, the cast seems to have been chosen on the basis of looks rather than acting ability, and the only character with a halfway decent plot-thread (the overweight guy whose feeble pranks are a desperate attempt to ingratiate himself with his peers) meets a predictably 'ironic' end long before his genuine emotional distress can be allowed to detract from the orchestrated mayhem. And secondly, the requirements of 3-D photography - in particular, the attention paid to the point of convergence from shot to shot, in order to prevent eyestrain and headaches in the audience - has resulted in visual and dramatic compromises, slowing the movie's rhythm and sapping all vitality from the narrative (this was true of many other 3-D movies which opened the following year). Seen in 3-D, the extra dimension is a genuinely effective novelty which enhances the viewing experience tenfold, from the opening credits (which seem to shoot out of the screen with startling clarity) through to the extended finale when Jason's rampage literally spills into the audience's lap. Viewed flat, for all its bloody violence and exaggerated body count, the film is a lumbering, pointless rehash of the first two entries, with no identity of its own.

Followed by FRIDAY THE 13th: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984).

Loved this sequel, once I started watching, I couldn't stop. The characters are origional and really likeable, there is a lot of suspence and the death scenes are pretty good, too. Also this is the movie where Jason dones his famous hockey mask.

There's not much to say about the plot as it's almost identical to parts 1 and 2, although a small gang of bikers follow the teens to camp (but, of course, Jason is around so they don't last long...)

I thought that the chase scene at the end between Jason and The Last Girl was suspencefull and very well done.

Great movie, especially considering it is a sequel. Highly reccomended.