Friday The 13th Part 3: 3-D
The third entry in the series, finally released in its proper form of 3-D on DVD, uses the gimmick well, but in many ways doesn’t hide the fact that there really isn’t much of a story here, but instead a continuation of Jason’s killing spree from Part 2. It’s kind of funny that even though Jason had escaped on the previous day (end of Part 2), that the local police aren’t out combing the area or even putting the residents on any kind of alert, as the college kids gathering at the cottage for the weekend aren’t even aware of what’s happened nor do anyone from the Crystal Lake PD stop in to check on them or give them any kind of a warning. What IS a vast improvement over the previous entries is the quality and appeal of the cast members, almost all of whom are likable. The main reason for this, of course, is Dana Kimmel’s lead role as the adorable Chris: most definitely the best heroine in the series, and since the viewer so readily connects to her early on, it makes her final showdown with Jason have some real emotional weight behind it (especially the ass-kicking she gives him). The cast also features Larry Zerner in the role of cult fan favorite Shelly, who’s responsible for Jason obtaining his hockey mask and has such a proclivity towards elaborate and gruesome practical jokes that when he shows up with his throat slashed (for real) by Jason, the other characters brush it off as one of his pranks and go about their business with his dead body lying there. The other characters, including a biker gang that causes trouble for a couple of characters to the Tommy Chong pothead lookalike and his old lady, to the beautiful Latina friend played by former Miss Florida (and first runner-up in Miss America) Catherine Parks, all feel like fully-realized characters instead of cardboard cut-out slasher-movie archetypes, not so much because of the script but more because the actors really seemed to care about bringing their roles to life. As for Jason himself, Richard Brooker definitely enables the character to finally hit his stride, becoming the confident serial killer we all know and love instead of the bumbling fool he was in Part 2. The story does contain a number of plot holes and threads that are never followed up properly, particularly Chris’ encounter with Jason two years prior that was never properly detailed, and has had Friday fans arguing for years over whether or not Jason may have actually raped her(!) instead, not to mention the girl who constantly mentions the fact that she’s pregnant for little or no reason. The kills themselves are better than the blink-and-you-miss-it style of Part 2, though some (especially the kid doing a handstand who looks to have been bisected) look as though they could have used a little more gruesome detail, while others (the guy who gets his head crushed and his eyes pop out) are pretty impressive. The 3-D effects keep the film watchable and unique, though there’s a bit much of deliberately pointing things into the camera for 3-D’s sake. In the end, a solid entry in the series elevated by its cast…
7/10