hoernkeem Review of Friday the 13th: Part 3

Friday the 13th: Part 3 (1982)

Friday the 13th part III review(1982, Steve Miner)

[2/10 · 7 February 2021]

Friday the 13th part III (1982, Steve Miner) This is the third chapter in the iconic horror/slasher Friday the 13th mega franchise. It is a direct sequel to part II although features no characters beyond Jason himself from previous films. This is the only film of the franchise to be shown in 3D and it certainly shows. This is the height of 3D at its most gimmicky and every other scene has something obviously poking out at the audience trying to attain that obvious effect. In most cases it is laughably bad or just plain cheesy. Once again a band of young people gather at Crystal Lake to have some good old fashioned teenage fun, but one by one they start falling in gruesome style to the maniacal killer Jason. All of the characters here are silly archetypes and do not go much beyond superficial tropes. They even have three people show up as some sort of motorcycle gain to add some menace and give Jason more people to kill. They look like 'Purple Rain' rejects. Their aesthetic does not age well. About the only good thing in this film is that they finally stumble across giving Jason his hockey mask which is probably one of the most identifiable horror props in movie history. Jason is singularly connected with this specific mask and it remains that way to this day. The final girl here has a back story where she once got assaulted by a monstrous looking individual, but no one believed her and she is still traumatized by that. Not surprising, when she is finally confronting Jason he reveals his face to her which reveals that he was the guy who attacked her all those years ago. Well she gets the last laugh as final girls are apt to do by supposedly killing him... not so spoiler alert. As we know these days Jason is not one to stay deceased for long, but he is deceased at least for the remainder of the film. The girl has some disturbing visions that mainly serve as callbacks to the other films. This was a pretty significant box office success at the time, but really is quite a horrible film. The acting is bad and nothing about the script or direction is inspired. It relies way to heavily on 3D technology as a gimmick and the film is saturated with that gimmick. No character development exists at all so we don't care at all for these people. It is so silly and laughable that nothing here is menacing or scary and even the gory aspects are simply eye rolling. There is little to nothing positive about this film. I really think the only thing is discovering the iconic hockey mask. The rest of this movie is a dumpster fire. Eric's Grade: D-