Friday the 13th Part 3

Alternate titles : None

Tagline : "Camp Crystal's Bloody Legacy"

Friday the 13th Part 3 Set shortly after part 2, a group of teenagers decide to visit their family's old holiday home, "Higgins Haven", which is located somewhere further along the Crystal Lake shoreline.

Unfortunately for them, Jason (who now appears significantly different from part 2) is still prowling about, and after acquiring an Ice Hockey Mask from one of his victims, goes on another bloody rampage and proceeds to do away with the holidaying teens in much the same manner as before.

Heads are crushed, people are slashed with knives, hacked up with machetes, stabbed with red hot pokers, impaled on pitchforks and shot with harpoon guns in this entertaining and in some places, quite amusing, third entry into the series.

The film was originally released in 3D, to cash in on the short lived boom of 3D movies coming out in the early 80s (one remembers Jaws 3D and the appalling Amityville 3D). Which makes some of the scene's look rather peculiar now the 3D effects have been removed (unless you get the special edition US DVD), although the eye popping scene and the shot with the harpoon gun are quite interesting.

Whilst not the best in the series, it still delivers lots of good gory fun.

Overall Marks : 6/10.

Terrifying Trivia

The design of Jason's hockey mask came about quite by accident. The producers didn't want to use the bag idea from Part 2 again, as the stuntmen had complained how it restricted their vision, so they wanted to use some sort of mask instead. During production, director Steve Miner spotted one of the extras fooling around with an old leather hockey mask on set and lliked the look of it, so they made a hard copy out of plastic, and that became Jason's trademark for the rest of the series
A lot of gore was trimmed from the US version in order to gain an R-rating. These shortened all the death scenes, which were originally longer, bloodier and more drawn out
The electronic "disco" music used for the opening credits was by Michael Zagar. The rest of the movie recycled Harry Manfredini's musical cues from the previous films.
Richard Brooker, a former circus trapeze artist, got the role of Jason after answering a casting ad in a trade magazine. Steve Miner chose him for the sole reason he wanted a large guy to play Jason. Brooker had only one further acting role, the part of Ogris in the movie "Deathstalker", before turning his hand to TV production and direction. He continued to work in the TV industry, predominantly producing sports and daytime shows for the US TV networks and was a regular on the convention circuit until his sad death in 2013.
The TV newscaster was played by director Steve Miner.
The cut US theatrical version was submitted to the BBFC, only to suffer another short cut in order to gain a UK 18 certificate. Which removed the scene of a mangled dead body up in the ceiling joists dripping blood down onto the girl below, who is then knifed from behind. This scene was missing from both the theatrical and video release, though it was re-instated for the UK DVD.
Larry Zerner, who plays Shelley, was offered the job after one of the producers spotted him outside a cinema handing out flyers to a horror film and asked him if he'd like to appear in one.
"The Royal" cinema in Toronto Canada owned one of the few original 3D prints of the film still in existence and used to show it at a special screening once a year, however the cinema apparently changed hands some time in 2006, so it is not known if this is still screened.
The US "Deluxe" DVD release in 2009 was of the 3D version, however this release didn't start the 3D effects till AFTER the opening credits. Channel 4 TV in the UK screened the proper 3D version with the opening credits in 3D in 2009.