To Conclude - Friday the 13th Part III (1982)

I must say I’m ready to wrap up my thoughts on Friday the 13^th Part III (1982) for the blog, hopefully for the last time. I’ve written about this sequel plenty of times and in January 2020, it feels right. So many Friday fans have formulated their thoughts, putting their own personal stamp on what these films reflect back to them.

Shelley is that next prankster, unlike the previous goofball, who isn’t so lucky enough to be out of the path of destruction of a killer in a Friday the 13^th. He really doesn’t know when to quit, either. Supposedly, according to the script and how Shelley is presented, he just craves attention and for people to think he’s more than some unattractive boob. But there is only so many gore gags you can pull—and Miner’s effects team give away secrets that might have infuriated the make-up magicians of the time—like the hatchet to the head, knife to the back, and pop out of the water in wet suit and hockey mask with harpoon in hand. He pisses people off, including the Latina gal he hopes to impress, Vera. Chris certainly is over it, taking him to task—as does her friends—for the hatchet to the head hair piece and pretend collapse-to-the-ground prank. When he goes towards the barn—as every fucking idiot in the film—to investigate the strange noise, he only returns after a long throat gash reveals no more pranks or fake pretend death. He’s just dead.

As is Vera who drops Shelley’s wallet in the Crystal Lake, goes to retrieve it, and sees hockey-mask Jason with harpoon. Calling him out brings the spear to the eye and flop into the drink. She’s dead.

I was amused at how The Prowler (1981) featured Pam with a pitchfork and Friday the 13^th Part 2 (1981) offers Ginny also with a pitchfork—and both films have a scene where Pam and Ginny are hiding under the bed with a rodent showing up to freak them out—and it is such a popular tool for slasher films it once again makes an appearance in Part III, stuck in two of the three biker gang members, with Fox’s gnarly lifeless body stuck to wood in the loft of a barn particularly wow. Ali, who made more trouble than he should have, as karma in the form of Jason Voorhees not only clubs his head three times but also lops off his arm with a machete, including additional repeated stabs, made damn sure he was good and dead. One of the popular scenes has Shelley and Vera at the grocery store, as mentioned by me in another final post for this film.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­When I was a kid, one of the scenes that always sort of took me aback was when Rick is pulled to the side by Jason, mouth covered, unable to move, as Chris sticks out the door of the cabin calling out to him. No answer. I guess I had expected at that time for Rick to last a little longer. He doesn’t. He goes out to hopefully find Chris’ missing friends, but what Rick couldn’t have anticipated is Jason squeezing his head until his eye dislodged towards us. And he was such a good listener, truly observant to Chris’ trauma, the much debated possible sexual assault at the grappling hands of a fiendish Jason, his heart totally devoted to her love. As all Friday fans know all too well, if the camera is pulled back with the heroine next to a big window, a body going through it. What made this scene sweet isn’t necessarily Rick being hurled into the house, but Jason crawling in to pursue her. Then all the subsequent chase where Chris doesn’t just run from him…she grabs a knife and stabs him a few times, while going right at him. I always dug that. And dropping him, roping his neck, and throwing him off the loft to hang…even when that isn’t enough, Chris grabs the ax and thrusts that right into Jason’s head. Chris doesn’t always get the same love as Steele’s Ginny and maybe that is our fault, the Friday fans who can’t help but give our love to the latter without recognizing how the former, with all that trauma, says, “Enough!” Rick doesn’t have any success against Jason, but Chris sure does! Her freak-out at the end, with the added Mama Voorhees nightmare (and Jason emerging without his mask to torment her with a smile) tacked on for some reason by Miner and his team, is understandable. I thought her scene, where her face is locked in horror and shrieking panic, in the squad car after all she had been through, really impressed me. But she was alive. And she wouldn’t fall the same way as Alice. Probably because she would be in the nuthouse.