Originally entitled Friday the 13th, Part III: 3-D, the third installment in the series hit theaters on Friday, August 13, 1982. And to view the film, you had to wear those funky, red and blue glasses that made the images pop off the screen. [+] Read Full Review

Originally entitled Friday the 13th, Part III: 3-D, the third installment in the series hit theaters on Friday, August 13, 1982. And to view the film, you had to wear those funky, red and blue glasses that made the images pop off the screen.

You remember those goofy 3-D glasses, don’t you?

Upon the success of Part 2, Paramount immediately greenlighted another sequel. Steve Miner stayed on as director (look for him in a cameo role as a news reporter at the beginning). Producing duties went to Frank Mancuso, Jr., son of Paramount’s president at the time. However, this third incarnation did not create the same magic evident in the first two films.

The first five minutes recap the ending of the previous film. Before the credits role, we see Jason’s body crawl along the floor followed by a close-up of his mother’s severed head, still enshrined in Jason’s cabin. And it’s all downhill from here, folks. We are “treated� to a retro-disco garbage soundtrack completely out of left field that in no way does fits with anything we’ve seen (or will see again) in the series. This alone leaves the movie to fight an uphill battle to regain any sense of respect.

We meet Harold and Edna, a couple near Crystal Lake. Edna is constantly whining, and Harold constantly eating—in just a few short minutes, this guy consumes orange juice, donuts, peanuts, even fish-food! Jason is hanging around outside, so all of this really has no consequence. Predictably, Harold and Edna meet untimely ends basically because they, well... exist. Harold receives a cleaver to the face (á la Mark in Part 2) and one of Edna’s knitting needles is rammed right through her skull. After grabbing a new set of clothes, Jason heads back to Crystal Lake in search of more teens to slaughter... and today is his lucky day as a new group of unfortunate victims have gathered like lambs to the slaughter!

This time around we have the stuck-up Vera (Miss Florida of 1978 and runner-up in the Miss America Pageant that same year)� Shelly, the prankster, geek, loser, etc.; the “stud� of the group, Andy; his love-toy, Debbie; Chuck and Chili — Part 3’s answer to Cheech and Chong; Chris, our main character; and Rick, her romantic interest. We’re also treated to a biker gang, of sorts, consisting of Fox, Loco, and the leader, Ali.

Now, Chris (Dana Kimmell) actually has a bit of a back-story: two years prior to this film, she was vacationing at the lake with her parents. She got into a fight and ran off into the woods. There, she was attacked by a horribly disfigured man and blacked out. When she came to, she was in her bed and did not know how she got there. Her parents never spoke of the incident. The whole plot here is her struggle to come to terms with her past, in order to move forward with her life. To do so, she invites a bunch of her idiot friends to her grandmother’s farmhouse near Crystal Lake.

Unfortunately, her past is going to come back to haunt her in a big way. Let the homicides begin!

After the gang settles in, Vera and Shelly (Larry Zerner) head into town for supplies. While there, they are harassed by some local hoodlums and look to leave rather quickly. Shelly accidentally backs over the groups’ motorcycles, inciting some poor attitudes. Receiving a shattered windshield, and a threat of revenge, Vera and Shelly head back to the farmhouse.

The bikers’ idea of revenge comes in the form of siphoning gas from the van of the teens, and using it to set the nearby barn aflame. (Hmm... a van with very little gas left... I wonder if that will come into play somehow later on.) Ali and Loco work on the gas, while Fox decides to snoop around the barn for no apparent reason. She’s just curious... and as we know, curiosity killed the cat.

Loco arrives next, looking to douse the barn with gas. He eventually finds the lifeless Fox, and is himself rendered dead with a pitchfork to the gut. Soon, it’s Ali’s turn. Finding his friend dead, the inaptly named Ali takes a swing at Jason. Jason does his best impression of the true Ali, by “floatin’ like a butterfly and stingin’ like a bee.�

Some gang.

Meanwhile, everyone’s patience with Shelly grows rather thin, thanks to his constant joking and pranks. Fed up, Vera heads on down to the lake... alone! Continuing his childish behavior, Shelly thinks it funny to dress up in a wet suit and hockey mask and pretend to attack Vera with a spear gun. Vera obviously is slightly perturbed and an embarrassed Shelly heads towards the barn.

It’s not shown right away, but we soon learn Shelly’s been disposed of. His death, however, is perhaps one of the defining moments of the entire series. With an apparent dream to join Crystal Lake’s hockey team, Jason dons the mask that made him famous... that mask he would use in every single sequel to follow.

Happy with his new look, Jason heads out to the lake to make quick work of Vera. Spear gun in hand, he fires it right into Vera’s eye socket. Bulls-eye!

“Starting in goal... number 13... Jason Voorhees!�

Upstairs in the farmhouse, Andy and Debbie finish making love, and she heads to the shower. You can probably tell where this is heading. Andy decides it to be a good time to practice his hand-walking skill. Unfortunately for him, Jason is not very impressed. With his trusty machete, he slices Andy in half... lengthwise... from groin to chest! By far, this remains one of the top three kills of the entire franchise and makes the movie worth the price of rental!

Once out of the shower, Debbie reads a copy of Fangoria magazine in bed. The article she turns to mentions Tom Savini, the special effects wizard who worked on the original Friday. In homage to Savini, Debbie is killed in much the same way Kevin Bacon was in that film.

Next up, it’s Chuck and Chili’s turn to meet the masked wonder. The power goes out, and Chuck heads into the cellar to check the fuse box. Always in the right place, Jason flings the waste of space directly into a shocking encounter with Mr. Fuse Box.

Upstairs, a dying Shelly stumbles into the kitchen. Chili, thinking it’s just another stupid prank, soon realizes Shelly’s slashed throat is not make-up. Now we’ve got your typical cookie-cutter female death: Chili runs through the house aimlessly screaming, until Jason greets her and shuts her up. Permanently.

So now we’re stuck with Rick (Paul Kratka) and Chris. Yikes. Conveniently away from the farmhouse for the past few hours, they return to a seemingly deserted house. By this point, it’s painfully obvious Chris is our heroine, so that means it’s Rick’s turn to check-out.

Heading outside to investigate alone, Rick meets up with the disgruntled hockey goalie who was evidently cut from the team. Jason grabs hold of Rick’s head and crushes it to the point where his left eye literally pops out of his head, directly towards the camera. Now, originally set in 3-D, I can appreciate the reasoning behind this display, but on a typical 2-D transfer, it resembles something more out of a Looney Tunes cartoon. Still, for the gore fans out there, it is a pleasing kill, nonetheless.

Now it’s finally Chris’ turn to go one-on-one with Voorhees. Obviously, if you haven’t seen it, I won’t ruin the ending. So, if you really want to see what happens here, you’ll have to go ahead and rent it.

The acting? Where do I start?! Even by slasher standards, it’s sub-par. Chris is the lead character and she’s probably the worst of the whole lot. She’s comes across as very wooden, sucking the life out of nearly every scene she is in. The viewer does not care whether or not she lives -– something more fitting for later sequels. Remember Amy Steel? Now that is a character you can get behind, if for no other reason, because she is extremely attractive. Chris’ only saving grace comes at the end as her mental breakdown scenes could be considered adequately satisfying and believable.

Special credit goes to Richard Brooker for his portrayal of Jason. Once he puts that hockey mask on, he really shines. Large and menacing, his depiction of Jason is dead-on as a perverted, psychotic child-like killer as evident in one scene near the end of the film. He reveals his face to Chris, and she realizes that it’s the same person who had attacked her two years prior. Recognizing her, Jason has the most sadistically insane smile on his face. It’s evident he truly enjoys hunting and killing these teens.

The other memorable Jason scene occurs when Chris is out on a rowboat. Looking back towards the barn, she sees an unmasked Jason at the window. He sees her, and gets that nice big smile on his face and proceeds to literally scratch and claw at the window in excitement. It’s a can’t-miss scene. Awesome stuff, Mr. Brooker!

The gore here is somewhat subdued and the nudity is nearly nonexistent. The reason: Dana Kimmell. She constantly moaned and groaned about the amount of violence and sex in the film to the point where Miner and Mancuso, Jr. agreed to cut out a good portion of the film. Considering her poor acting skills, I would have opted to just find a better lead.

Just my two cents.

This film would have received the dreaded one-skull rating if not for a few show-stealing scenes. The first is Jason’s historic procurement of the hockey mask, meriting an extra half-skull itself. It’s the symbol we first think of when we hear the name Jason Voorhees. Then, the combination of Andy’s gruesome body-splitting death scene, and Rick’s worthless dork head being crushed between Jason’s powerful palms are worthy of a bump up to a two-skull rating. That sweater Rick wore... that guy HAD to go!

From this point on in the series it becomes obvious that each sequel is just a cheap-to-produce cash cow for Paramount. This one had the 3-D gimmick, and it grossed upwards of $15 million more than its predecessor. I understand this is a business, but one has to wonder that if they actually took their time in the creation of new sequels (instead of pumping them out each year or so), the product might have been more original.