Picking up right where the previous sequel left off (it actually repeats almost the entire ending from "Part 2,") "Friday the 13th Part 3" insinuates that Jason left Ginny (Amy Steel) alive and then just wondered around killing innocent Crystal Lake residents for no apparent reason. Two of them are a married couple working at their grocery store, whose sole purpose for dying seems to be warming-up the audience into what a movie shot with 3D effects will look and feel like. [ED. Don’t ask me, I didn’t keep the 3D glasses I got from "Jaws 3D" and the DVD doesn’t support any three-dimensional interface whatsoever.] Then we meet another team of overeager and hormonally-conscious teenagers that are going camping at ‘Higgins Haven’ (no, not Camp Crystal Lake; same lake, different location).

Why would these kids gather here when (a) the TV newscaster (played by director Steve Miner in a cameo role) is reporting about a gruesome massacre nearby and (b) they saw the bodies of the two grocery store victims as they were driving to Higgins Haven? Besides the idiot plot, the only answer the haphazard plot seems to insinuate is that Chris (Dana Kimmell) wants to get over a traumatizing memory of something she saw there. She’s also got the hots for Rick (Paul Kratka), with whom she may or may not have had a romantic entanglement before. Other campers at Higgins Haven include a trouble-maker tubby named Shelly (Larry Zemer) and a trouble-free beauty named Debbie (Tracie Savage); these two accidentally get into a tussle with a gang of bikers, and all hell breaks loose when these trio of road warriors try to get back at the residents of Higgins Haven by stealing the gas from their truck’s gas tank (again, FORESHADOWING). Before they can say ‘What the Fu...?’ Jason gets rid of these gang members and stalks his territory in the camp’s barn. If there’s going to be any killing here (gee, what are the chances of that?) it’s going to be Voorhees doing all the hacking. And slashing. And stabbing. And spearing. And electrocuting. And head-squeezing. And...

It’s hard to believe that Steve Miner, director of "Part 2" (one of the better "Friday the 13th" installments) and a man who went to direct such luminaries as Mel Gibson ("Forever Young") and fellow cinematic antihero Michael Myers ("Halloween: H2O"), was in charge of this cinematic abortion. The acting is the most atrocious in the series yet; even by horror slasher’s lower-than-low standards it reaches pathetic levels of giggle-inducing awfulness. Dana Kimmell’s wimpy heroine Chris, in particular, just seems to suck the oxygen and joy out of any scene she’s in. There’s a flashback scene recalling an encounter with Jason that traumatized Chris (Ch.8) that is edited so bad, and with Kimmell delivering such laugh-out loud bad histrionics, that I had to pause the DVD so I could laugh hysterically for five minutes non-stop. If only I had the robots from "Mystery Science Theater 3000" alongside me when I watched this turkey... my God, the ribbing and laughter we could have had with this woman’s wooden non-expressive persona.

Ditto for chubby Larry Zemer, who plays perpetual joker Shelly with such wimpy frailty that you want to reach into the screen and grab him by the hair; shame this dorky character will always have a place in "Friday the 13th" lore as the provider of the hockey mask Jason dons for the very first time. Paul Kratka (Rick) looks old-enough to be Dana Kimmell’s father, yet we have to buy them as a couple trying to mend their differences. Only Tracie ‘I want to be a reporter’ Savage stands out as promiscuous hottie Debbie, but her face when Jason finally gets to her is plain retarded. And don’t get me started on the black dude that plays the leader of the most inept motorcycle gang ever seen on the big screen; I don’t know how I would react if I had my hand chopped off, but I certainly wouldn’t stand there looking this THIS (see picture on the right)! Other inconsequential characters (a perpetually-high hippie, a young man that likes to walk upside down using his hands, etc.) are only memorable as victims-in-waiting, and register a big fat zero in the ‘do we give a shit about this person’ category.

Then there’s Jason, who in this movie is shown walking and moving more prominently and leisurely than the campers he’s killing. Miner’s piss-poor camera angles look bad (a waste of the 2:35:1 aspect ratio), effectively killing suspense and tension by denying us the menacing Jason from "Part 2" whose feet and body were so imposing. The 2:35:1 widescreen aspect ratio should be used to hide Jason in hard-to-spot places and have him go ‘BOO’ when leas expected. In "Part 3" he looks more like a poe’d bouncer with a mask than a serial killer (kinda like the singer in Smashing Pumpkins), a feeling enhanced by the cheap production values and artificial-looking lighting used to film the personality-deprived world in which Jason and bait exist. The Crystal Lake woods and the cabins/tents around the lake were an integral part of the ‘stalking out there’ mentality in Jason; their absence makes "Part 3" feel like it’s taking place in an entirely different movie, one without any regard or concern for fans of barely-acceptable entertainment. It looks and feels like a badly-lit set, which it actually was because production took place in a movie ranch on the West Coast instead of Connecticut.

I guess Sean S. Cunningham (director/producer of the first "Friday the 13th") and Miner were on the right track after all when they aped John Carpenter’s "Halloween" for the first two "Friday the 13th" movies; the switch to dollies and locked camera positions kills what little potential for freights there was in "Part 3. As you may or may not know though, this was one of a handful of short-lived early 80’s nostalgia trips into fake 3D effects; this explains why characters seem to aim stuff (reefer joints, pop-corn, an eyeball, Jason’s hands, etc.) directly at the camera, and thus distract from anything happening on the movie itself (which thankfully ain’t that much). "Part 3" is easily in the running as one of the worst entries in Jason’s spotty resume. It’s sad that the best part of the movie are the opening five minutes, which are the almost-complete ending of "Part 2" (all right, more Amy Steel for me to gawk at!). A year-long hiatus and a quality blood bath would be required to keep the series alive past this disastrous and ill-advised detour into cinematic hell, but I digress. Those are topics to be read in the next "Friday the 13th" review.

BODY COUNT: 12 (six men & six women, one of them off-camera). ANIMALS KILLED: one (slaughtered remains of a bunny inside a cage). MOST GRUESOME DEATH: no contest! Andy (Jeffrey Rogers), walking upside down using his hands, gets the split of a lifetime between his legs courtesy of Jason’s mean machete; then he becomes ceiling decoration as she reads a Fangoria article about make-up man Tom Savini (cute). Holy Mother of God, THAT’s gotta hurt! Another death that hurts is Chris’ fake drowning by a corpse as she’s having nightmares ("Friday the 13th" nightmares apparently) on the boat drifting in the lake; it doesn’t hurt because it’s gruesome or scary, but because she doesn’t actually die right then and there. God, she’s such a hooooorrible actress!

1/2