Deffinately the best in the series, F13 part 3 was shot in that classicly campy theme of 3-D. Sadly, since it's such a pain in the ass technology to create, video versions were not converted. There are copies out there on e-Bay you can pick up once in a while, but unless you have a converter box, it's not worth it. Trust me, in my brash attempt to see the flick in 3-D I bought my own special copy (though I'm too ashamed to admit I paid $35 for it... aw crap...) and was sadly disappointed. However, provided you saw the movie when it first hit theaters, or you happen to won both a 3-D copy and converter box, then you would thrill and laugh as many an everyday object is made into 3-D (!!!) and thrown right at your face! Everything from fists to sharp objects to a striking snake, even an always horrifying yo-yo put you on the verge of wetting your pants as the terror seems to be right in front of your very eyes! At least I'm guessing that's what it's like, as I have never experienced such an event before...

Our movie itself opens with a 7 minute replay of the events that ended FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2, which I won't write about since you can just check out my review for it elsewhere on this page. The gore begins a new afterwards, as Jason (now decked out in a spiffy nutton-up shirt and a pair of Dockers) attacks the owners of a nearby "Ma & Pop" operation, starting the festivities with a meat cleaver and a knitting needle. Yep, as we all know, Jason has survived the plucky Ginny (and her crappy Volkswagon), which is bad news for a van full of teens planning to stay at a little lodge on the shores of Crystal Lake for the weekend! Alright, as always I have to wonder why the fucking cops of that town don't shut down anything and everything involving Crystal Lake! I can understand why it was opened in the second movie, because the events of the first movie had happened years prior. But this time, these people are staying at the lake a mere day or two after the serial killing hijinx of the last movie! Does this mean these cops are so well trained and professional that they manage to wrap the whole thing up in a matter of hours, then it's back to business as normal?! Fucking hicks...

Anyway, our group of kids consists of the usual Jason victims. There's the fat comedy relief, the hippies, the girl with the dark past, and the others, who are simply meat. I don't know about any of you reading this, but I would hope I had goals that went beyond becoming "meat". So, the group goes to the house on the lake, where our girl with the dark past, Chris, once had a run in with the freakishly mangled Jason Vorhees when she was younger. Jason chased her through the woods, where she blacked out, then awoke in bed the following morning, no idea of anything that had happened. Last time that happened, I woke up the next morning with a really sore anus, but that's enough about my life. Also at the lodge is Chris's boyfriend Rick, who's there to be her big macho hero, and to do all the menial labor that the fat guy can't.

Speaking of the fat guy, he and one of the other girls go into town to buy some supplies, where they have a run in with the constant menace of '80s movies: the evil biker gang. Possibly on the run from Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood, they hassle fatty and his female pal, getting their just desserts when fat boy runs over their motorcycles! This gives them reason to follow fatty to the cabin later on, where they siphon the gas out of the group's van and have an unfortunate meeting with everyone's favorite survivalist Jason, and his gut hungry pitchfork. Later on, as Shelley (the affeminately named fat dude, named so for good reason) is exploring the barn, which everyone seems to have a gnawing curiosity to explore by the way, he too meet with the anti-social hack-and-slash man. This is actually a milestone in horror history books, because this is the scene in which Jas gets his most important tool of fear: the hockey mask.

Though it sounds funny to think of a psycho killer in hockey gear, the mask is actually quite nightmarish. It was meant to help intimidate other players on the ice, as an extra way to help the goalies psyche out their opponents. Besides. just look at those big hollow eye holes! There is no indication of even the slightest face on the mask, unlike Michael Myers. Myers's mask was just a pale rubber face over his own and Leatherface's mask is bits of flesh sewn together to resemble a patchwork, yet still human visage. But, Jason's hockey mask has no mouth or nose, simply holes. Also, the mask is practical, as it will deffinately cushion or deflect blows that a Halloween mask will not! Why do you think goalies wear them in the first place?! Besides, ever since this movie, the site of the hockey mask has become a symbol of horror for many people, making hockey all that much cooler! Oh, and Jason looks much more frightening in it that Sheeley did...

With his new face gear in place, Jas goes about the systematic demolishion of the remaining cast members, harpooning a girl in the eye, hacking another in the shower, cutting one dude in half (WHILE he was walking on his hands of all positions!), throwing one hippy into a fuse box, and stabbing his chubby hippy girlfriend with a red-hot fire poker (Poker?! I hardly know her!)! As for Chris and Rick, they return from their little soul searching intimate journey crap, finding their friends all dead! Rick then gets to be the next to die, as Jason goes back to the basics of nature, crushing Rick's skull with his bare hands and popping out the dude's eyeball! Now THAT would've been awesome in 3-D! Now for our heroine Chris to do the usual and kill Jason.

First Chris manages to punk Jason several times, embarrassing the HEll out of him, considering he took the other victims with such ease! Then she tries to escape Jas, attmepting a get away in the van. But, as we all know, the bikers siphoned the van's gas, so Chris runs out before making it out of the driveway. Jas then hobbles his way after Chris, cornering her in a barn... yes, if I were being chased by a madman, the first thing I would do is gets myself into a closed in area like a barn, as opposed to running through the vast wide open forest, or attmepting to swim across the lake to safety. Then again, without stupid people, slasher movies wouldn't exist and America would be deprived of some seriously graphic violence, forcing us to resort to making it ourselves. And thus ends my defense of slaher movies.

Back to the barn (where seemingly half of the movie takes place), Chris heolds her own, decking Jason upside the cranium with a shovel and lyching him from the rafters! But, to fullfill the "the killer's not dead yet" requirement we all know and mock, Jason lives, freeing himself to finish off the leader of the biker trio (who was simply beaten unconscious before, not really killed) before Chris takes this moment to plant an axe into the villain's skull! Jason stumbles, probably from the shock that he got his ass kicked yet again, then lies down and dies for good (or at least for the rest of THIS movie). Chris, for some reason, then hops into a rowboat and floats out onto the lake, where she passes out. When she wakes up, she sees possibly the most horrifying site in this or any F13 movie, as Jason, without his mask, looks at her from a window in the top floor of the barn, giving her the most demented and sickening look in history. Seriously, my girlfriend can't even be in the same room when this scene comes on! As she screams incesantly (as we all know we would, no matter how tough Charles Atlas says he can makes us), Jason's decayed mother (with her head attatched no less) leaps up from the water, dragging the traumatized Chris down into the murky depths with her. The next morning the cops take Chris away, Jason's body still lying in the barn as she screams like Marilyn Burns.

As I said in the begining, this is the best movie in the series, because, as i said, the one shot at the end of Jason's face, illustrating his sick and twisted intentions for Chris are almost enough to make me ill! Yes, I am a psychotic desensitized piece of hate, but that face just gives my stomach the hee-bee-jee-bees! The killings were nice and bloody, also well done, especially for the scene with the guy getting hacked in half and the harpoon shot through the one girl's eye! Also, even though it's not in 3-D, all the intended 3-D scenes are still fun to watch and well done. Not a bad job by Steve Miner who also did F13 PART 2. Actually, since he would later make crap like HALLOWEEN: H20 and LAKE PLACID, I think he did a damn fine job! Finally, any movie gets extra credit from me when they have a cameo by everyone's favorite semi-monthly horror mag, Fangoria! Yep, one of Jason's victims is seen checking out a Fango featuring an article on Tom Savini (a little insider gag, because Tom did the FX on the first F13 movie) and a 25 year retrospect on the exploits of the true lizard king, Godzilla! Jason of course sticks a knife through the babe's chest though... hope she didn't have a subscription, that'd be such a waste!

Oh, I've made up my theory on just why it is Jason wears that hockey mask for the next 6 or 7 F13 films. But, just to spare some room on this page, I made it on a seperate page, that can be accessed by clicking on the rolling head below. Check it out, Siggy Freud here helped me write it up!

DVD X-tras: Sadly, this is one of those Jack Shit DVDs, named so because that's just what you get for extras, Jack and Shit... and Jack left town. Well, there's a trailer, and it is pretty cool seeing all the blood and mayhem in widescreen and digitally remastered!

Also Known As: FRIDAY THE 13TH IN 3-D

Sequels: FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER; FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING; FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES; FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD; FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTEN; JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY

If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: HALLOWEEN: H20 or BLOODY MURDER