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Friday the 13th Part 3 (3D) - Blu-ray DVD / horror DVD / slasher flick DVD review
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 (3D) Rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America curledupdvd.com rating: 2 1/2 stars
Featuring: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Nick Savage, Rachel Howard, David Katims, Larry Zerner
Director: Steve Miner Studio: Paramount
DVD release: 16 June 2009 Runtime: 95 min.
(1 disc)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, 3D, Widescreen, Blu-ray
DVD features: 1080p High Definition, Aspect ratio 2.40:1, Audio tracks (Dolby TrueHD 5.1 - English; Dolby Digital Mono - English, French, Spanish), Subtitles (English, English SDH, Spanish, French, Portugese), 3D Version of the Film (includes 3D glasses), Fresh Cuts: 3D Terror, Legacy of the Mask, Slasher Films: Going for the Jugular, Lost Tales From Camp Blood - Part 3, Theatrical trailer

Making a 3D film is a technical challenge, and it can consume a lot of a director's time and resources. Setups for shots take longer and if the filmmakers aren't careful, the overall product can suffer at the cost of a gimmick. This is the case with Friday the 13th Part 3.

I'd never seen Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3D before, but it's always been painfully obvious that it's a 3D film. Every opportunity is taken to thrust things directly at the camera. On the surface this is perfect for a slasher flick, but unfortunately this helped to make the overall quality of the film suffer. 3D in the theater is an all-around better situation. The polarized gray lenses used for the effects work better than the red/blue lenses used for home viewing. The grey lenses take away some of the colors, but the red/blue lenses positively destroy it. It's worth seeing some of the more obvious effects in 3D just to enjoy the extreme kitsch of obvious and senseless 3D gimmicks.

The body count starts after a quick recap of Part 2. It's not really relevant to this episode, but it's done nonetheless. Jason hacks up a couple of store owners to whet his palate. We must assume this is somewhere near Camp Crystal Lake, though it's never mentioned. Next, it's time to release the horny teens. Chris (Dana Kimmell) has invited some friends to stay at her family farm. She brings an assortment of archetypes: amorous young couple, a few potheads, a loner/prankster, and the girl they're setting him up with. Should be a good weekend of jabbing things at the camera, right? The only thing that gives this more depth than the previous two movies (aside from the 3D) is Chris's troubled past, and truly this depth is superficial. She was attacked in the woods by Jason a couple of years before. She's back to prove she... I'm not sure why she's back. Maybe to feed some friends to a psychopath. Naturally things go awry.

Friday the 13th Part 3 has the distinction of being the film that made Jason recognizable and iconic by giving him his trademark hockey mask. Jason is physically bigger in this film and scarier, unflinching in his mechanical persistence. We never quite know what his motivation is for killing everyone. It's not sustenance. It's not revenge. I guess it really doesn't matter. He's back, he's killing, and that's his nature. At this point, he's alive and freakish and scary. In future films he'll become undead and perhaps more unstoppable. Stay tuned.

The Blu-ray edition includes two versions of the film - standard and 3D (two pair of glasses included). Bonus features in the way of high-def featurettes here outstrip previous editions, including
  • Fresh Cuts: 3D Terror - a featurette about the 3D effects in the film.
  • Legacy of the Mask - a history of Jason's trademark mask.
  • Slasher Films: Going for the Jugular - discussing slasher flicks up to this point.
  • Lost Tales from Camp Blood Part 3 - a short slasher flick in the vein of the Friday films.
  • Theatrical trailers.
 
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reviewed by Eric Renshaw
   
         
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