Friday the 13th Part III (1982)

WTF, Ninja Dixon is going mainstream? Well, Ninja Dixon has always been mainstream but what I'm doing is reviewing mainstream, commercial, movies that are so commercial that they nowadays stops to be mainstream. Get it? They're mainstream for a small amount of people or was mainstream for a huge amount of people ages ago. Friday the 13th Part III was one of the most successful sequels in the franchise, it scored 9 million dollars in one weekend, with a budget of 4 million - and generated over 30 million in total gross. That's pretty good for a movie at that time.

Much of it is because of the wonderful gimmick called 3D. I never seen in it 3D, until yesterday, when I decided to pop the cherry on the blu-ray and with some adjustments on the TV settings and trying out several different glasses we watched the whole movie like it's supposed to be watched and it's one of the best 3D I've seen on one of these old movies (The Hobbit still has the best 3D I ever seen, it's just stunning and so natural). I've always liked the movie itself, even without the extra dimension, but at the same time - it was missing something.

The story is without a doubt the thinnest ever in the saga of Jason, and with that I mean that it usually has some interesting emotional twists or just smart ideas to keep us interested. In part III some kids goes to Crystal Lake (two of them being over-aged hippies, which is very odd) and gets killed. That's it. I'm not even sure why they're going there, but it's probably only for the reason to fuck and smoke dope. Then there's some extra characters, some motorcyclists and the owners of a local store added just to be killed. It's not much to chew into actually.

But that's also part of what makes part III so strong when it's shown in 3D. Because the visual style of the movie, excellent work by Steve Miner by the way, and the silly characters fits perfect together with the extra dimension. It has no real story to tell, but it has fun angles, a camera that more or less always moves and awesome deaths. That's what part III is about. It was also the reason why the actors are among the worst in the series. All attention was put into the technical aspects of the film and the actors was more or less left alone doing their job. Larry Zerner is, without a doubt, the worst actors of the bunch - but also the most iconic character from the movie. He manages to give us some sympathy for him, even if he's the most irritating guy since the wheelchair dude in the first Texas Chainsaw, but utters his lines like he's never acted before. I think this is partly because of lack of involvement from the director.

Like every other Friday this was also trimmed to fit the fascists at the MPAA, but it's still blood and graphic and has some of the coolest deaths so far. Cheesy stuff, yeah, but that what works in a 3D sequel. My favorite is the eye popping out towards the camera and of course when Jason slices a guy in two, when the victim is walking on his hands! Lovely stuff.

The 3D gives this film the extra boost it needs and it's really the only way it should be watched to feel complete.