Friday the 13th Part III 3D review: Jason stalks and slashes his victims in the third dimension in this one-off screening at Mayhem Film Festival.
Friday the 13th Part III 3D review by Kat Hughes.
Friday the 13th Part III 3D Review
The 1980’s was a glorious time for the horror genre. With the rise of the mighty VHS it was so very easy to get your horrific content out into the world, so much so that we were gifted the ‘video nasty’ of cinema. At the same time, 3D was taking cinemas by storm, it would go on to be a flash-in-the-pan craze that would die until James Cameron’s Avatar. It comes as no surprise then that many films sought to combine horror and 3D, one such film is Friday the 13th Part 3.
The third film (obviously) in the franchise gave the new technology a whirl, and all these years later it is looked back on with fondness by many. Near impossible to track down for the average viewer, we managed to catch a special one-off screening of the movie at Nottingham’s Mayhem Film Festival. Now in its thirteenth year, and falling over an October Friday the 13th, the organisers Steven Sheil and Chris Cooke couldn’t not show a Friday the 13th film and thought that the 3D version would make things extra special for attendees.
It was certainly a memorable experience. It’s easy to see why older audiences were so impressed with the likes of Avatar when this is the type of 3D that they had to reference against. As we entered the screen we were given the old school red and green cardboard glasses which meant that the whole film was a strange red and green jumble. It was a little jarring, but let’s be honest, you don’t watch a Friday the 13th film for the cinematography…
The 3D is glorious in its silliness. The choices of what to make 3D seem to have been born out of a brainstorm at a hardware store. Most of the 3D elements appear to revolve around the handles of brooms, pitch forks and clothes props being jabbed in your face. We also get a few arms grabbing out at the screen, rats running towards you, popcorn popping up into your face, and one instance of a yo-yo dangling up and down in front of your face. There’s also a great moment where an eyeball fires out of the skull of one of Jason’s victim’s right at you. It’s certainly entertaining as a vintage throwback now, but it is terribly gimmicky.
Plot wise it’s pretty much the same stalk and slash that the franchise is famous for. It was however, the first film that had Jason stalking prey other than Camp Crystal Lake counsellors. He has to go on the run at the start of the film, but don’t worry, he still ends up murdering folks in a cabin in the woods. Also trivia fans, it is this film that Jason gets his beloved hockey mask, stealing it off of victim Shelly. There’s also a nice callback to the death of Kevin Bacon’s camper. This time around it’s a female victim laying in a hammock. Outside of both of these moments it’s business as usual and, 3D aside, is sadly one of the weaker Friday 13th films. Still, it was one heck of a way to spend a Friday the 13th.
Friday the 13th Part III 3D review by Kat Hughes, October 2017.
Friday the 13th Part III 3D screened as part of Mayhem Film Festival’s 2017 programme.
