I thought I was beginning to figure the Friday the 13th franchise out. Upon starting Friday the 13th Part III I was greeted with a familiar recap of the last bit of the previous film, just as it had done in turn with the first film. You can’t expect people to remember what happened in a movie a whopping 15 months ago, can you?
Then something happened. The opening credits began to roll. But they were different. They extruded out at the screen, one at a time, as if displaying some kind of cheap parlor trick. Oh god. I get it now. This is a 3D movie!
Imagine my surprise when I’m now wading into the third film of a rather prolific and somewhat well-regarded 40-year-old horror franchise. Imagine still that this franchise has yet to present its iconic antagonist in a form recognizable by anyone other than die-hard fans and they’re ALREADY EMPLOYING GIMMICKS TO KEEP PEOPLE INTERESTED. Yes, you’ve heard me correctly, folks: Friday the 13th breached the third dimension before Jason ever put on a hockey mask.
OK, now that I’ve got that out of the way, I actually enjoyed this one way more than I thought I would. I was immediately worried when, after the intro, every other shot had some object waved directly into the screen. They clearly had every intention of milking this gimmick for all it was worth. But with the 3D also comes an almost lighthearted feel to the movie. The characters this time are goofy caricatures, but they have more personality and are vastly more distinguishable from one another than either of the casts in the two previous films. It sacrifices some of its self-seriousness to actually let you care for some of these people before they’re massacred. And by the way, the kills in this one are even better than the last. I won’t spoil any of them, don’t worry.
It feels weird calling a movie with so much blood and gore “playful” but it’s the word I consider best conveys how different it feels from the previous installments. I was excited to see Jason finally donning his mask and lumbering at his victims like a freight train rather than stalking from the shadows under cover of a burlap sack. I went into this expecting it to be another paint-by-numbers serial killer slasher movie like the previous two, and while it really wasn’t revolutionizing the genre, it was at least trying to paint with a different palette.
I went into this expecting it to be another paint-by-numbers serial killer slasher movie like the previous two, and while it really wasn’t revolutionizing the genre, it was at least trying to paint with a different palette.
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