I really consider ‘Friday the 13th: Part 3 (IN 3D!!!)’ to be the series highpoint. The moment where all the elements that I want in a ‘Friday the 13th’ movie kind of come together and crystalize into the format that’ll act as the template for the rest of the series up to but not including ‘Jason X’

The basic plot? a group of friends consisting of a handful of ‘normies’ the obligatory ‘practical joker friend’ and a couple of Hippies head up to a cabin near ‘Camp Crystal Lake’ for a weekend of fun, where they end up getting more than they bargained for when a group of punks follow them up to the cabin after the practical Joke friend (Shelly) wrecks their bikes. Jason Vorhees turns up for a slice of the action too, and what follows is essentially 95 minutes of stalker/slasher in the woods fodder that manages to be deeply satisfying, campy and bloody all in equal measures.

I could see the script kind of being the make or break for people with this one as its essentially a combination of plot lines from the first two movies. Some people may be put off by it being a little generic and not really breaking new ground over. But I think theres a bit more going on with this one than just a generic retreading of the old plot threads.

What we have here is a clear break from the two films with the ‘whodunnit’/’murder mystery’ elements having been formally binned off and your left here with an incredibly polished script that feels like the production took the best elements of the first two films and slammed them together.

The tone isnt quite as serious this time around, its a little tongue in cheek, but they offset that humour with some very gory and dark kill sequences and a few more harrowing monologuey sections with our core cast, on the subject of which, our characters here are all largely playing stereotypes of the genre…but then…in 1982, the slasher genre was still kind of in its infancy, so really they wernt *proper* stereotypes at this point, THESE were the characters later stereotypes would be based on.

The pacings pretty solid, though i’ll be the first to admit the opening 15 minutes or so add NOTHING to the overall plot, really do feel like a drag and its pretty much there exclusively to try and set a tone AND make the ‘3D’ part of this 3D movie feel like an investment well spent.

Beyond that 15 minutes though it keeps a decent pace for most of the runtime, never getting too dry and always keeping a nice contrast of macarbe to silly. Which I quite enjoyed.

Theres a clean 3 act structure, its clear a lot of lessons have been learnt from previous entries about how to pace this one, and the end result is a script that, as mentioned just feels like a really solid crystalization of all the ideas from the last two movies, brought together to form a finished production here.

The directions is a little bit of a mixed bag, I personally really like the style the director was going for here, and its clear the vision he wanted to create was well communicated with the cast. Unfortunately with this being a 3D movie a lot of creative decisions appear to have been outside of the directors hands…Expect plenty of shots of things jumping directly into the camera or of the cast holding things up directly in front of the camera.

It also has to be said that because this film was shot on 3D cameras, the 2D version of this film (which I watched for this review) looks a little soft comparatively and suffers quite badly from Chromatic abberations across the runtime. Its not unwatchable by any means, but it does just take the edge off it visually.

Equally the cine is largely great too, but those 3D shots do drag the production down in my opinion and the murky softness of the downconversion did leave a bit to be desired. It’s not all doom and gloom though! This being the first film featuring Jason in his Hocky mask, we get some lovely ‘Iconic’ shots of the big man running aound with huge axes, pitch forks and other such fodder, theres a great shot with a harpoon gun which works a treat and compositionally, while its maybe a little cheaper looking than previous entries. I think when this film shines, it really doesnt dissapoint.

Its also quite nice to see a return of bloodier, gorier scenes here. The 2nd film felt quite subdued by contrast with minimal blood and only a few visable gore sequences, whereas this film feels much more in line with the original, with plenty of ‘Axes to the head’ and ‘being shot through the eyeball’ to make the thing feel right at home with the other entries, could it have gone harder? I think so. But I feel the get the gore to lighthearted comedy about right and the end result is satisfying to me.

The edits rock solid, it could probably have been 5-10 minutes shorter for me personally, but I didnt clockwatch through this, I was always pretty engaged with it, the sequences are well structured with plenty of cutaway footage to help keep things interesting, without also overwhelming the sequences. Its given plenty of room to breath.

Its the performances that really shine here and help just push this film up to the next level, our gang of teens are all animated, vibrant and pleasent to watch, and while they may be a bit stereotypical, I feel that kind of tone actually quite suits this film, because of this it feels less like a serious film trying to compete with the likes of ‘The Exorcist’ or some of the more darker Amacus/Hammer productions, and more like a film that wants to entertain, have some laughs and not take itself terrifically seriously.

With the standard F13 scoring style running over the top of this thing, theres very little that I dislike about ‘Part 3’ It’s the film I usually end up revisiting the most out of the franchise, and its the one I recommend to people who havent seen a F13 movie before. To me? its the quitessential ‘Friday the 13th’ film, its defining of exactly what this series should be about and is, and Id say it’s definitely worth checking out.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/friday-the-13th-part-iii/