TAGGED AS: Horror
At the beginning of Friday the 13th Part III: 3-D, Jason wakes up, fully recovered from his machete-in-the-shoulder flesh wound incurred at Part 2‘s climax. Another 24-hour killing frenzy ensues, beginning with two locals at their convenience store, then moving on to a colorful group (including two hippies and a biker gang) of vacationers at Crystal Lake.
I first saw Part III in 2004 and wrote it off as a trifle. Watching it again today (3D at last! I’m having Rad Racer flashbacks!), I think I was wrong: here is a movie that fully embraces its role as a midnight movie. It’s funnier. Jason dons the hockey mask. The theme music is this sublime disco cheese remix. It’s in 3D, and with hilariously blatant 3D shots like popcorn flying directly into an overhead camera. And at one point a roach is passed directly to the audience. In 3D! Here is a movie that knows precisely its audience.
Returning director Steve Miner completely strips his movie of the verite-style camerawork of parts 1 and 2, favoring instead flat, direct compositions to work with the 3D format. A lot of the shots emphasize foreground and background layers, creating depth, with elements to jump out at the audience.
This shooting style may have been dictated by the 3D format, but in hindsight, it was the perfect way to fully introduce Jason to the world. Rather than using handheld POV shots or angles of his feet trampling across the wilderness like in the first two, the camera lingers on Jason, building his three-dimensional presence and, in the process, creating the horror icon. (Miner was smart to hire the hulking Richard Brooker to replace the lean country boy Jason of Part II.)
The carnage culminates in a barn, where lone survivor Chris (Dana Kimmell) has lured Jason. Normally, Jason just skulks in, kills a kid, and then the movie cuts to another scene. In this barn sequence, we get uninterrupted shots of Jason furiously tearing the place apart, searching for victims, humanizing him in a way that is truly frightening. Part III‘s is probably my favorite iteration of Jason. He still has the agility of a wood-raised man, able to dodge, weave, and counterattack, but with a devotion to killing (not to mention a curiously strong healing ability) that is beyond that of a sociopath, belonging instead to the supernatural monster. And variations of the tone established in Part III follows the rest of the series.
Is it noteworthy that Part III‘s script is the only Friday script to be co-written by a woman? And that this is the first Friday not to jump on the fact that teenagers only think about sex and drugs? The group that converges onto Crystal Lake in Part III isn’t a bunch of bland, communal counselors like in the first two, but a disparate group with their own individual conflicts (including the external threat of a rowdy biker gang). Shelly, played by Larry Zerner, is a introverted prankster who pines for his blind date, a Tia Carrere-lookalike named Vera. He’s the most sympathetic Friday character yet, if only because he looks like Seth Rogen.
Oh, the Jewfro. Before you were persecuted, relegated to horror cinema, stuck on kids who couldn’t get laid and got their throats cut. Now, you can make it with Katherine Heigl. What a long way you’ve come.
Friday the 13th Part III: 3D Vital Stats:
Memories of Crystal Lake:
Tomorrow, it’s my favorite (at least, it was at the time) Friday: The Final Chapter!
Schedule of Fridays:
