Friday the 13th, Part 3 . Weekly Alibi . 09-29-97

Friday the 13th, Part 3

DIRECTED BY: Steve Miner

REVIEWED: 09-29-97

You didn't believe me when I said I was gonna watch the whole pile of Friday flicks? Well, it might be akin to whacking oneself in the head with a brick simply because it feels so good when you stop, but I'm in this for the long haul, baby. This one starts where the last one left off, although they tweaked the ending of Part II slightly to make it seem less like running into a wall. After spending 10 minutes on a really unpleasant couple (one of whom occupies at least two of those minutes planted on the toilet), director Steve Miner sends psycho killer Jason into the game, and the white trash weasels are quickly dispatched so we can move on to the main cast of idiots--and once again, Jason does a service to mankind by eliminating these dopes before they can reproduce. There are two reasons why this otherwise lousy entry in the series is important: It was shot in 3-D (unfortunately, the video release is flat, but I still found myself oohing and aahing at appropriate moments), and it marks the first time Jason dons his signature hockey mask (taken off the corpse of a truly despicable "sympathetic" character). However, there's a problem with watching a bad 3-D movie in 2-D. Take the scene where Jason crushes a guy's head, sending his eyeball hurtling audience-ward--only we now realize it's a fake eye on a stick, and the threat of drippy body parts landing in one's lap is reduced to mere speculation regarding the terror we might have experienced. And what's with our lovable slashmeister, anyway? While wearing his hockey mask, Jason comes off almost smooth, yet when the mask is knocked off, he capers around like a gibbering schmo-tard! Many a college paper could be written about this guy, lemme tell ya. Surprisingly little gore, annoyingly little nudity, Part III serves only to set the stage for the far superior ...

--Scott Phillips

Other Films by Steve Miner
Friday the 13th, Part 2
Halloween: H20
Lake Placid

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