Hello and Hallo-welcome to Sequel Sunday, where we revisit some franchises that maybe we should never have returned to. You join your bloggers, Andy and Lilly, in life-like 3D, having developed a new dimension in horror reviewing.
Today’s Film Offering: Friday the 13th Part III
Lilly: Turns out, in this sequel to Friday the 13th, it doesn’t matter if you go to Camp Crystal Lake at all, because Jason will take his show on the road and come to you! In Friday the 13th Part III, a group of young people are just trying to have fun at their friend’s old family home, located on Crystal Lake–well, okay, so Jason doesn’t go that far, but he was pretty badly beaten up, so give the guy a break.
The film kicks off with a couple of shop owners getting Jason’d pretty quickly, so we know what’s coming (oh right, it’s a Friday the 13th film!), and their murders are done with moments of ‘whoooaaa’ 3D, with knives thrusting and laundry blowing (whoooooa–wait, why is she hanging things out at night, surely sunlight is the key to this–whooooaaa watch out, it’s JASON).
Andy: You love this crap, don’t you?
Lilly: I DO AND WHY DON’T YOU
Anyway, our return to Crystal Lake is shared by the new batch of Jason-bait, headed by Chris Higgins, whose family owns the ridiculously sized home on Crystal Lake (but then, the real estate there is likely cheap what with all the murdering and tragic accidents). She brings along her pregnant friend and the pregnant friend’s boyfriend, their incredibly hateable friend, Shelley (he’s a prankster!) who is set up on a date with Vera, who is clearly not into her date, blind or not, plus two stoners who…I don’t know, I just knew I’d miss them when they were gone.
Andy: Oh yeah, those guys!
Lilly: Who? Oh right, the stoners. Right.
So, they get to Crystal Lake (after running into an old man who literally is the smartest in the film, yelling about how they should turn back) and meet up with Chris’ boyfriend because Friday the 13th is all about making single people feel bad–even that awful shop keeper guy had a girlfriend/wife! Gosh.
The film then becomes a will they/won’t they story, ‘they’ being Jason, and the will or won’t being whether he will kill every teen he comes across, or just a few. Spoiler–this is Friday the 13th, what do you think!
We also learn that Chris has a secret reason to have come out to the incredibly nice house with her friends–she had been attacked there years earlier so thought ‘why not go back there?’ and then continued that train of thought to ‘with my pregnant friend and a few others I sort of know’ because why not! Why not bring those people to a place where you were attacked.
Andy: They’re about at the intellectual level of a mold spore. So, normal Friday the 13th victims, then.
Lilly: You can probably guess how this film goes–magnificently, you’re right! There are amazing kills (tie between Andy, the pregnant girl’s boyfriend, and Rick, the boyfriend of Chris’, deaths for my favourites) and some horribly cheesy 3D shots where things are thrust towards the camera for 3D fun. Plus, you must know by now I love cheesy horror, and well. This is that and then some.
Andy: Yeah, this is the point in the series where we’ve officially left the heady uplands of “good” and dived into the occasionally boggy vale of “so-bad-it’s-good”. The entertainment factor for this one is purely in the realm of watching inventive ways of impaling teenagers, and if you’re not on board by now, this one won’t change your mind. It’s also the first movie Jason actually gains his iconic hockey mask, so it has that going for it as well.
Other than that, it’s a Friday the 13th movie. Were you expecting anything else?
Lilly: A 3D Friday the 13th movie, excuse you. It’s fun, is what it is. Is it art? No. Is it deep? Nope. Would I watch it again? Yes, yep, always and forever, yes. Give me those cardboard 3D glasses right now, let’s do this.
And we didn’t even get into the weird biker gang subplot! There is so much to enjoy! Go, watch, and let us know what you think!
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