Happy Friday the 13th!

I mulled over watching the Paramount 8 today, but I just didn't want to really exhaust myself, truth be told. I kicked things off with the fifth film for an Up at Night installment for the blog. I had planned to watch Part III earlier this morning but fell asleep awakening to find the DVD ready, complete with the silhouette of Jason stabbing his machete through a shower curtain in 3-D. I just decided on a late morning viewing of the third film. With AHS bringing to us a slasher parody upcoming in a few weeks, I thought it was only fitting that Friday the 13th was this month in September. Part III really is quite a flagrant example of the slasher genre during its most popular and pop culture relevant period in the 80s. It has all the ingredients for sure. A knife to the knee, rope neck snap after dropped from a barn loft, and even a hatchet to the forehead; Jason is eventually brought down by Kimmell's Chris. You get a lot of weapons, including the unlikely harpoon spear. I laugh at this synopsis...how many times before have I wrote something similar about all these Friday films? I did like Miner's connections to his previous film. He would leave behind the franchise after this one. So I kind of like to look at the first four films as rather decent connective tissue. Each seems to have connective tissue that links each installment together before Jason (and before him, Mommy) adds more folks to his ever-growing body count. I think the third film tries hard to recall both previous films and yet make sure the victims in it get enough time before Jason stabs them with hot pokers, slices them asunder with his machete, or hurls them into the electrical box in the basement. Sure there is the footage from the second film which just goes over the finale, but only Ginny is reported on a news broadcast (a haggard couple, including a nag with rollers in her hair and aggravating voice furious with her slovenly husband who likes to take food from their market for his clumsy mishandling of her clothes line, have the tube on and a reporter speaks about burlap-sack Jason's rampage) as alive, so fans of Paul perhaps should probably have to accept his demise. I like the tie to the second film, too, when Chris, with friends in tow, drives by the cabin where bodies are being carted into the coroner's vehicle, as to remind us that Jason's spree isn't totally forgotten from Part 2. But unlike Part V, Part III doesn't just give us a few minutes with the fifty characters it kills off. At least the characters are somewhat introduced, given something to do, develop a personality, before Jason dispatches them. The desperate 3-D effects and setups are obvious. Reading about how frustrated the cast was with them, I could see why this must have been quite a trial. But, in retrospect, they remain alive and well. Few remember their 80s television spots. But Friday fans watch them over and over again. I admittedly have seen this more times than I can count. If I hated it, why would I continue to bother? Trust me, I ask myself that from time to time.

I say as a film to be taken seriously: **/*****

Entertainment value, I have watched this many times so I gave it ***/*****

I didn't know this until just recently, but there was an idea to kill Chris through a beheading with a special Jason face created by Stan Winston! I really look to learn more about Part III but Steve Miner, a creative force in the early era of Friday the 13th, just doesn't talk much about it. Although not always mentioned among his Masters of Horror peers, and perhaps he isn't fond of this past, Miner did contribute to the genre's identity. He took Cunningham's first film and added to its legacy...for better or worse.