As I mentioned in my review of the first film, I've only seen the third film once way back during my late Middle School years, with a very vague memory of the film. I was happily entertained despite being confused with the character of Jason; I just didn't get much out of it when it was over. How did I find it to be so forgettable? Is the film really that bland and uneventful despite using the 3-D gimmick to make it interesting; or was I just so confused about Jason's character that I couldn't get sucked into its 80s horror cheese as much as I'd like too? ON WITH THE REVIEW!
Taking place a day after the events of the second film (which would mean that the title is highly misleading since it doesn't take place on "Friday the 13th", but on "Saturday the 14th". And yeah, I'm aware the title is apart of the films identity, and I guess has "Part 3" attached to it as its only loop hole to prevent the studio from changing the overall title to something unrecognizable. But they could've called the film "Jason Returns" or to be more specific considering that Jason still wasn't iconic yet "The Return of Jason Voorhees" that I'm pretty sure will attract audiences who saw the first two films), a young woman named Chris (Dana Kimmell) and her friends go up to "Camp Crystal Lake" to spend a weekend at her old home where Jason waits to slaughter them. And…that's it! That's pretty much the plot of this movie! There's really nothing in terms of story and formula that's all that new and different from the last two films. The young adults go to the middle of the woods to behave like jackasses and have sex, get axed off one by one leaving the last survivor to take on Jason, and the film ends exactly the same way as the other two films ended when the bloodshed is over. Nothing's changed, except that we have new victims for Jason to kill at a slightly different location for him to roam around. Originally this installment was going to rip-off "Halloween II" by having Ginny from the previous film, be committed into a mental hospital where Jason would visit to seek out his revenge as he kills the staff and patients, but the story was abandon because the actress playing Ginny was occupied with other projects at the time. The original plot may not be that original (though to be fair to a certain degree, neither was the original "Friday the 13th" film apart from its setting) but at least it would've been a nice change of pace rather than rehashing everything a second time.
And since everything is once again very predictable, from its plot, formula, shots, use of music etc, etc, it surfers from the same exact criticisms that I had with the second film in terms of atmosphere and suspense. The scenes of suspense drag-on and aren't shocking for how easy it is to tell when and where Jason is going to pop-up and attack for how familiar we are with the tricks used in these films; the red-herrings are used way too often in the first half that makes you wish that Jason really was there; and the environment of where the film is taking place offers little variety in location for how similar it is to the previous films, except for being smaller and taking place more at daytime (the 2nd film at least had Jason's mysterious shack). That's not to say that we don't get a few neat and fun things out of the film's environment. As boringly average as the location is, the old cabin although may not seem much at day, or all that scary at night, in the night scenes when the eerie wild wind full of leaves is blowing the door and windows open as Jason lurks around the house to kill his next victim, it does successfully manage to create a classic spooky and suspenseful atmosphere, even if it only happens in two scenes. And the music while still sounding like a rip-off to the music "Psycho" that fails to create tension for how generic it is, it does give us something original in the opening and closing credits and that's the theme to this movie, that sounds nothing like the music that you'd hear throughout the film, for how bouncy it is. It sounds like the kind of music that you'd find yourself dancing to at a Halloween party for its upbeat techno sound that's drenched in complete 80s pop cheese! It's not scary in the slightest. But to be fair, perhaps that was the film's intention. To let the audience know from the very start that it's not supposed to be taken too seriously and just wants you to just have a spooky fun time. If that were the case, while refreshing to know that the film is aware for it to be just simple bloody entertainment, it still doesn't excuse how tedious the scenes building suspense and the lifeless atmosphere surrounding the film as it lazily reuses half of the techniques that we've seen before in the other films.
The only real new technique that the film does differently when compared to the others is that it's reusing most of the series old tricks and plot threads in three-dimension. Considering that audiences may find the formula tiresome at this point, the studio felt that a 3-D gimmick will be enough to have audiences go along with it. Does the 3-D distract from how tiring the films have gotten with being too predictable, not at all. Just because everything is shot in 3-D that doesn't automatically make the things that are stale suddenly look new and impressive. It's still just as boring in Three-Dimension as it is in Two-Dimension. The 3-D features for the film itself is just as primitive as you'd expect it to be before the late 2000s can perfect on them. It's made at the time where all that 3-D was supposed to do is to have shots of people unnaturally holding or poking a prop towards the camera as it's filmed to make it appear to be leaping off the screen, when it's obvious that it isn't since they were using a double image with the red and blue coloring for whenever the trick is used that makes the scares predictable as you're still seeing double. It was unimpressive back then, and it’s still unimpressive now. However, whether or not your watching it in crappy 3-D or viewing it in 2-D with these odd shots, it does make the experience of viewing the film as semi-fun to watch as "JAWS 3-D". The film isn't consumed with these effects as much as you'd think it would, but whenever they use it, it either adds to the thrill or coolness to when someone is about to die as Jason pokes his sharp weapon of choice at the screen, or laughable for how pointless and uncalled for it is, which there are just too many examples of that to cover (such as the yo-yo scene; the characters pointlessly juggling; and the kids playing baseball). For me the funniest moments is how the 3-D shows how fake the props leaping off the screen can be, by showing the wires attached to a fake snake, or a crazy Ralph knock-off holding a fake eye in front of our faces long after everyone flees from him. Also let's not forget that no horror 3-D film would be complete without having cheesy 3-D credits for when the film opens. You know the more I think about it, the more I realize that even in the past 2 films there were a few bits that looked like they were shot in 3-D, such as how the title for the first film crashes into the screen and shatters glass, or the shot of Ginny in the second film holding a pitchfork. It's almost as if these films were destined to become a 3-D film at one point during the franchise, and now we have it, in its uncanny glory!
So the story and structure is unimaginably the same except that it’s just shot in crappy 3-D that doesn't help overlook how boringly identical most of it is. Is there anything that stands-out about Jason, the new characters we meet, and the deaths that befall upon them to make the film more interesting than the little things that we're given? "JAWS 3-D" may have had an inventive set-up as it has fun exploiting its tacky 3-D effects, but we're still given for the majority of the film a dry experience for how unamusing the characters, shark, and lack of creativity (and body count) to their deaths were. Well if you remember my reaction to Jason in the second movie, I found myself disappointed in his presence for how silly he looked with and without that ridiculous sack on his head, and for coming across as a weakling. In this film, Jason's appearance has been upgraded to the Jason that we're all familiar with. He trades in his colorful baggy hillbilly clothes for gray pants and a green button-down shirt, and ditches that lame potato sack for a badass Hockey mask; appears to be taller and having a different body weight to make him seem stronger than he was in the past (this time being played by English stuntman Richard Brooker replacing Steve Daskewisz/Warrington Gillette); and is bald and given a more grotesque make-up design that make him appear to be just as monstrous as he is with the mask on, exactly what I expected him to look like at the end of the second film instead of giving us a design that's not remotely horrifying for how silly, tamed, and phony it looks. There are also some subtle and hinted clues that Jason is more than just a killer who stabs people. During a newscast reporting of the killings at “Camp Crystal Lake”, if you listen very carefully when the scene isn't focused on the TV set, you can hear that Jason maybe responsible for cannibalism. There's also a flashback scene involving Chris encountering Jason and being unconscious during the struggle where some have speculated and debated that Jason may have had taken advantage of her, that's evidenced for how Jason comes after her and how she refuses to be in a relationship with her ex after the events. It's not clearly stated whether or not if Jason did it, but the imagination and ambiguity of what Jason did to Chris after she blacked out makes him more deranged than what we know and see. Jason himself even appears to have a bit more personality than being an insane killer, because we have moments in the final act where he destroys stuff out of frustration from finding one of his victims, and goes as far as to taunt Chris by taking off his mask and smiling at her as soon as she recognizes him.
Jason's appearance in this film is undoubtedly a legendary improvement to the character than the first time he became a killer in the previous film, but that doesn't mean that there still aren't numerous problems regarding the character. The most obvious problem is the continuity to how he looked in the last movie. When we last saw Jason he wasn't near as big and tall as he is now, and wasn't bald either. The continuity to his alterations gets even more asinine as it was with how they established Jason after the first movie,when we find out in the flashback before the events in the 2nd film that Jason looked the same as he does currently, which I guess means that the 3rd installment is once again thoughtlessly trying to rewrite history, only just in terms of Jason's appearance. As for those reading this trying to figure out why he's killing these people, it's as well as establish as why Jason previously went after Ginny and her friends, only you can you make the argument that his motivation in that film made a little more sense than it does here. He has no real purpose killing them, it only happens because we're strictly here to see Jason slaughter people and nothing more. Now as much as I praise his new look regardless of how contradicting it is to how he appeared previously, he does have just the same amount of slap-sticky moments of being just as weak as he was before, that is shamelessly shown during the climax. I know a killer has to have his downfalls when fighting against the victim, you have to in order to make the final battle feel rewarding for our lead. It's just with the tension being so lacking, and with Jason doing very little to attack the girl making him feel that he's not in control of the situation unlike what most climaxes do, he spends most of his time chasing the girl, getting beat-up, and (I kid you not) backing away! I really couldn't think of a single scene or moments where I felt that our last remaining character is close to facing death at the hands of Jason at such a heart-pounding rate. Jason may look tough, but he has to act it too! I swear that if you'd replace half of the sound effects of Jason getting beat up with stock cartoon sound-effects it wouldn't be that different. The most ridiculous abuse he takes that I can't believe puts him down for a bit is when Chris knocks over a bookshelf. And no, it's not something plausible like say the shelf falling on him, or having something cartoony as a swarm of books falling on him, its only a few books that hit him and it for some reason puts him down. And to top off all the negatives when covering Jason is that as mad and full of body language as his personality is in this movie, the film tragically removes his sympathetic side. In the last film, the character Ginny thought about Jason's psyche where it brought us a great insight to his tragic roots, and when she dressed up as his Mother to fool him (I'm still wondering about the logic behind it) you felt a softer and gentler childlike innocence to the character that's expressed through his movements and how we see his eye through the sack gaze at her in despair. This film never and I mean never tackles on Jason's psyche or attempts to make him sympathetic in anyway, he's just a crazy killer and that's it (and the film showing 7 minutes of footage from the last film does not count). I may not have been a fan of Jason's previous appearance, but I did like that the film made him as emotionally disturbed as his Mother was from their constant abuse from self-centered teenagers, which I find to be the true reason of why these characters are so fascinating (and for me personally in some ways relatable just minus being a psychotic killer).
Jason is hit and miss in the film, but has a little more hits here than what he had when we saw him last. How about his kills, especially when being shot in 3-D. Compared to the last film that was a little too afraid to show its gore, there is a little more use of blood here. That's not to say it's as impressive as Tom Savini's work for the gore effects, or that the film isn't as timid to show it, it's very standard but we do get some very intense and inventive deaths and shots that do look nearly as gruesome. The first time we ever see Jason kill someone while wearing his trademark hockey mask is by shooting a girl in the eye with a speargun in 3-D, which is an excellent way of introducing him in his iconic design, from the shots, bloody image of the spear hitting the girl's eye, and a 3-D effect that is honestly less cheesy and gimmicky when compared to the others, since I can picture that shot being done in the previous films. And then there's that shot of a guy being split in the middle from Jason's machete as he is randomly walking on his hands for no real reason. Half of the other deaths that we witness are standard, but some of the shots made for 3-D of how Jason holds his weapon at them, though not feeling like it's leaping at you, does kind of put you in the point of view of the victims giving you a perfect idea of how painful and sharp Jason's murder weapon of choice is. However when half of these average deaths don't play on the 3-D gimmick they seem less amusing. Is there anything laughable, or over the top during any of these kills, given the film's cheesy nature, most definitely. Earlier in the film a character who has no relevance in the film's story what's so ever gets killed by Jason in a very staged way where it's obvious that the blade isn't penetrating into the character's skin, and yet later on in the film he's somehow alive and ready to kick Jason's ass only for him to suddenly have his arm cut-off and be killed. That appearance was so out of left and pointless that I just couldn't help but laugh at the fact that the writers had one of their victims survive and then be killed after returning from a very long absence, almost as if the film was trolling us into thinking that we're going to see this character help Chris and really rumble with Jason. And this isn't the only time that the film feels like its trolling the viewer. Midway before the climax, one of the girls takes a shower with a shot that's very similar to "Psycho" where Jason is out killing her boyfriend. You think that the film is going to rip-off "Psycho" for how its building up this kill, until you see the girl walk out of the shower and down the hallway giving us nothing that we'd hope to see. We do get a death, and without going into detail let's say the build-up is to the film ripping-off an iconic death in the first film, rather than an iconic death that gave "slasher films" a future. The film's attempts to troll its audience is quite amusing and in some ways a bit ahead of its time. The most laughable death that I couldn't believe I witnessed was when Jason grabs one of the characters by firmly placing his hands on his head, and in the very next shot we see the actor playing the victim suddenly be turned into a life-sized Ken doll as Jason squishes the head causing its eye that's attached to a wire pop-out at the audience. It's easily by far the cheesiest and silliest death and effect that I've seen in these films that I just had to burst-out laughing at the very moment it happened as I was in disbelief at how incredibly fake it looks.
As Jason has a large group of innocents to kill off, the film decides to needlessly give him more people to tare apart outside of Chris' group. He kills off a married couple after the opening credits as he searches their place for new clothes; and easily goes up against three local punks who bully the visitors of "Camp Crystal Lake". These characters do have colorful stereotypical personalities for how exaggerated they are, especially the married couple with the sloppy husband and the nagging wife, but they have no purpose to be in the film except for padding it out. And the scenes of Jason going after them are the real offenders for the build-up to their doom dragging on for an unnecessarily large amount of time. If I had to pick what I'd rather see these films do for filler in order to pad out its run-time I'd have it be focused on Jason's kills than the teenagers just messing around, since that's why people watch these films. But that doesn't mean that those scenes can't be just as tediously annoying as the pointless scenes with the characters because they're just as uneventful when not being given the proper use and time of suspense. Still at least half of their deaths and how the film later on trolls us by bringing one of them alive make them a bit worth awhile. The only pointless character that the film throws at us who doesn't get axed-off and is just simply there to fill in the shoes for another character while presenting an awful effect in 3-D is Crazy Ralph's stand-in Abel since Ralph was killed-off in the last movie. This character is so awkwardly shoehorned in as he shoves the fake eye-ball to the camera, that he leaves not much of an impact for how he only shows up in a very short scene, and how similar he is to the character he's replacing with nothing really that new or fascinating about him.
One of the advantages that the previous film had over the original was that it had characters who were likable, worked off each other in a believable way (at least for the most part), and gave us a strong and smart leading girl. They aren't the greatest set of characters, but they had a little more to them than the characters in the first film. The characters in this film however, are mainly the same bland and one-dimensional characters that you'd see in the first film. They only stand-out either because of the one trait that their given, or background that they have that's never mentioned again. There's a hippie couple who are stoners and that's pretty it; there's a girl who's very stubborn and that's it; one of the girl's on the trip is pregnant, and we never hear about it again; Chris has a boyfriend who's pretty much no different to the boyfriend's that the other lead girls had; do you see what I'm talking about here? The lead character Chris is the only one in the film who has a bit of an arc from her terrible past encounter with Jason, but it isn't as amusing or played out strongly as it should because Kimmell is a lousy actress. Actually pretty much all the actors in this film are bad. There are times when they'd either appear to be laughing or smiling at the tragedies going around them as they try so hard to play up their character's distress. And a good half of the time when they're not trying to phone it in, they'd have casual and bored reactions to the deaths and people missing as if they're annoyed by it than they are disturbed or worried about what’s happening. The most priceless reaction to ever come out of these characters is definitely when one of the stoners throws a temper tantrum as Oscar worthy as Tommy Wiseau's breakdown at the end of "The Room".
The only character who I found to be more interesting, likable, relatable, as well as better acted than everyone else in the movie is Shelly (Larry Zener). When Shelly first appears in the movie, I was expecting him to be the typical obnoxious prankster who just does these things to be an ass and nothing more like the pranksters in the other movies. However, as I spent more time with the character as the film went on, I was surprised to learn that the reason why he's doing this is because he wanted to seek attention for being the socially awkward misfit of the group. His blind date doesn't like him, he's self-conscious about his unattractive looks, and is a bit of a coward. The the only way he knows how to get their attention is by using his horror props since that's what he loves playing with and collecting. Understandably people turn against him every time he pranks them, labeling him to be a "jerk" causing him to respond that "being a jerk is better than being a nothing". What he does is excessive and an awful way of getting attention, but given how much he feels distant from the other people he does the only thing he knows to get noticed even if he knows it won't help him, making feel where this guy is coming from. At one point in the film when he doesn't prank people at the camp, he eventually goes up against the bikers who've been harassing him and his date, showing that he's feeling a little more brave and confident in himself. After having more depth than the other characters, and appearing to be that this guy has a story-arc in the making, as much as I knew he was going to end up dead by Jason where his story is nothing more than your typical "Boy who cried wolf" scenario, I wished that he was the final person who faces Jason at the end. He'd go from being a weak and odd misfit who does stupid and bizarre things, to finally growing-up and doing the right thing by killing Jason to avenge his friends and possibly protect the girl that he likes. And since Jason takes his mask and props to kill people and hide his face, think about the tragic irony that Shelly's pranks are also part of the reason to why the people around him are getting killed, therefore giving him more of a motivation to kill Jason for his guilt of letting his childish incompetence get the better of him who must now do something right. I would certainly love to see the misfit get his sweet revenge than the beautiful girl with no personality who just has a past with Jason and doesn't seem to grow and develop after the events.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
In a nutshell, this film is just the same as the other movies, except that it's shot in 3-D. The majority of techniques and plot-threads used from the previous films are lazily reused again, that makes everything unexcitingly predictable; Jason is still a weakling with his tragic past being completely absent; the characters are a serious down-grade to the characters that we had from the second film; the location is nothing special; and the 3-D is terrible. The only reason why the film exists (retrospectively speaking) is that Jason gets his signature hockey mask, otherwise it's an entirely pointless sequel. But that's not to say that it isn't a fun watch. Jason looks awesome in his new design (with and without the mask) as he's given a little more expression; Shelly is one of the best characters from the franchise; the deaths as standard as some of them are, do have enough to come across as impressively gruesome, or incredibly silly; the out of place theme music to this movie is tons of fun; and as terrible as the 3-D effects are, the 3-D shots does add to its cheesy charm, if not saving how boring the film can be at times. If you're expecting to watch a sequel that doesn't constantly call-back to the original, and tries to give you something new and compelling when it comes to story, character, and environment, you're not going to get any of that here. But if you're a horror fan who is looking to be entertained without caring about how similar it is to the other films, and just want to watch idiots get slaughtered with a good slice of 80s cheese, you'll find yourself having a good time. Just like the past two films, this film is full of hits and misses, but the hits though not technically making it at all a good movie, are enough to watch it for pure entertainment purposes.
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