Starring: Richard Brooker, Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Larry Zerner, Jefferey Rogers, Tracie Savage, Catherine Parks.
Director: Steve Miner.
While I won't be watching it in 3-D, because I don't have that kind of technology(I can barely make this blog thing work) and, y'know, screw that, this movie was originally designed to be watched in that fashion. So, basically, every other shot is something just being thrown at the audience...so, just like a lot of today's movies. Y'know, those movies that are utterly insufferable.
That said, Friday The 13th Part 3 isn't a bad film, it just...well, look, it's like most of this series. It isn't that they're bad movies, it's that they're basically all the SAME movie, and that movie isn't terribly interesting. I was thinking about this franchise today and generally realizing how bored I pretty much was with the whole thing and I had only done two movies. I almost found myself excited about watching the later installments because they at least have gimmicks.
We have to get there first, though, so...Friday The 13th Part 3. We open to a quick summary of the end of the previous film, and then a jaunty disco beat credits sequence, and then to obnoxious trashy people yelling and playing with bunny rabbits. The rabbit is adorable, though. Cute little bunny wabbit! Also, aforementioned 3D shots: the guy juts a stick at the audience (for reasons unknown...he doesn't appear to actually be doing anything with it) and a snake leaps out from the rabbit cage...and the guy's response to that is to...take a shit.
Y'know, I was hoping to watch a man take a dump. Thank you, movie.
So, let's take a look at our mostly interchangeable cast of late-twenty-something actors playing teenagers:
We have Chris, our lead, who wants everyone to not worry about some vague traumatic experience she had at the lake despite nobody really bringing it up.
Our sex-crazed couple who are sex-crazed and I'm sure will last a good long while.
We have Shelly, who says he's an actor...and shows that by wearing masks, stabbing people with fake knives and having low self-confidence. He'll do well in Hollywood.
Shelly's Date, who...is Shelly's date. Seriously, I have no idea who she is. She had a fight with her Mom about going.
Finally we have two random stoners. They smoke a lot of weed.
After a stop to talk to an awesome derelict in the road(who has a human eye, which he pushes at the audience, saying "Eye warned ye!"), they go out to Chris's big lake house where, apparently, she has some country summer boy-toy who greets her by jumping on her like a mad man and kissing her. The guy must be forty. I made one of my favorite riffs ever at that moment.
"Did I do something wrong?" Rick asks.
"Well, you're my Dad!" I say. Rich thinks it's reasonable that they set aside three hours a day to fulfill their needs...because he gave up other plans to spend time with her. So, obviously, she's owes him sex. Rick is kind of a dick.
Shelly and his date go to town where they have a run-in with a motorcycle gang. The gang is super tough, guys: the way the lady biker forces Shelly's Date to say "Please" is super edgy. Motorcycle gangs are always working to improve people's manners in polite conversation, right? Anyway, Shelly accidentally knocks over their bikes, which causes the leader to lose his mind and smash up their windshield...and makes it so that three end up coming back to the lake house to be killed by Jason.
Really hackneyed flashback of Jason attacking Chris in the woods a year(?) prior...Dana Kimmell does the best she can, but her breathless recounting of events is very over-the-top and a little silly. The flashback itself is effective enough; a maskless Jason dragging her around, trying to jump on top of her...it's kinda creepy.
I think there's a real affection for the character of Shelly by the screenwriter and the director. Honestly, he may have more personality then just about any other characters in the series. Plus his disproportionately hot date seems to start to warm up to him, maybe even like him, before she's bumped off. And Shelly brings the signature hockey mask to the party so, in a way, he'll live forever. Shelly does get a "boy who cried wolf" death, which is kinda sad.
I assume the "Andy walking on his hands" bit may have been an improvisation? Like, the actor can walk on his hands so they re-wrote it? Or do you think they cast him because he could walk on his hands? I suppose it doesn't matter, but it is the only thing about the guy who stands out. Other than his being cleaved in twain, the guy is super lucky: hot girlfriend goes back to bed reading an issue of Fangoria. Be still my heart.
The Stoners actually last the longest! Can you believe it?! Other than the lead and her boyfriend/Dad, the stoners actually make it longer than any of the other ancillary characters. Did not see that coming.
Jason squeezes Rick's head so hard that his eye bursts out of his head...towards the camera because 3D. I have no commentary on that. It just...is a thing.
I will say that the early installments have the "mortal" Jason(since parts 2,3 and 4 all happen concurrently), which is interesting to see in hindsight. Jason actually has to move quickly, registers pain(he vocalizes pain, which doesn't last long) and actually isn't so undermatched for the final girl put up against him. Chris actually does some bad-ass stuff when facing off with the guy, including pulling a knife out of her dead bestie and going fill offense at Jason, backing him up, and stabbing him in the leg. Not sure why Chris needs to say every single thing on her mind ("Keys!" "Gas!") but she's a pretty formidable opponent. It's a decent third act chase. Her last stand in the barn is actually pretty resourceful.
I never quite understood why the script bothered to have the motorcycle gang member appear out of nowhere to attack Jason. I mean, it's kind of hilarious and unexpected, but after she's hanged him I'm not sure why there's more at all. He shows his face to her-apparently she hadn't connected this monster with the one who attacked her previously-and there's more of a fight, and then it ends again.
The "Jason's Mother" version of the original's hook scare is a bit silly.
Final Thoughts: Well, again, considering it's basically the same as the previous films, it's hard to do any real analysis of it. It exists, it isn't terrible, it mostly is just a string of kills performed on a largely interchangeable cast. There's a little more character laced in-Shelley has some stuff to do, and Chris has her "trauma"-but there still isn't much in the way of writing. It is what it is, and what it is isn't terrible.
Final Rating: Two Stars.
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