David Edwards
The move into the third dimension had been experimented with in cinemas long before Jason picked up that hockey mask. The 1950’s was the golden age of this technology with Andre de Toth’s House of Wax (1953) heralding a wave of, mostly, horror films to the 3D screen. William Castle, long an exponent of the literal cheap shock, saw several of his films pop out at the audience and even classics such as It Came From Outer Space (1953) were first presented in this format. Following this hey day though, 3D fell from favour and, apart from the odd flesh flick, such as Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (1973) there was little to holler about. That was until, suitably, the eighties version of William Castle, Charles Band, decided that the only way his killer Parasite (1983) could be seen was through the now iconic red and blue cardboard glasses. Although this film was a hit, $5million from an $800,000 budget, the format still craved its first big hit of the new generation and, while a wrinkly sad sack extra-terrestrial was ruling the box office, that hit looked very far away – that was until Jason Voorhees took a machete to E.T.’s grip on the number one spot at the US box-office.
Hard cut to Harold and Edna’s convenience store situated beside Crystal Lake. Apart from the dramatic red hue of the opening credits, our first experience proper of this amazing three-dimensional technology is…Harold poking a clothes line pole at the camera, swiftly followed by Edna retuning her television ariel. If nothing else, this shows that the film-makers, with Steve Miner at the helm for a second time, will take any opportunity to jab things at the audience from yoyos to wallets to harpoons. Although it was hell to film, with these effects shots taking an age to set up, this film has a very definite air of ‘fun’ to it. Maybe it’s the move from drab East to sunny West Coast (a requirement for the lighting needed for 3D shooting), maybe it is the kitsch effects but also, this begins Jason’s transition from monster to icon and it comes about in several distinct ways…
The original plan for Part III was to follow Ginny, our Final Girl from Part II, as she is taken to a hospital only to discover that Jason is still pursuing her. Maybe it was the relative failure of the similarly locatedHalloween II (1981) or maybe it was just the fear of moving Jason away from his backwoods locale, but through several treatments and drafts the film carries on directly from the events of Part II, on that particularly gruesome day of the year…Saturday the 14th.
The film has become a bit of a fan favourite over the years, no doubt due to the 3D special effects (hello ‘eye pop’) and it still has the grainy video nasty cinematography that ended up getting eroded by Part V. We have our stock characters, as established in the previous two instalments and so, our Final Girl is Chris Higgins, a young woman who was, two years earlier, sexually assaulted by a ‘hideous looking man…so grotesque he was almost inhuman’. The inference here is that the man was Jason Voorhees and, with the Friday the 13th fanbase, this has become one of the least liked plot details of the franchise (aside from the Slug Demon of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday). Freddy Krueger obviously had these elements to his character but for Jason it felt at odds with the ‘little boy lost’ persona that came from the initial two films. Luckily, this element was dropped almost instantly but it does provide Chris with an interesting trait as Final Girl that she won’t have sex due to teenage trauma and not because she is simply a virginial trope.
Alongside Chris we have the statuesque Rick, the stipulatory couple, here found to be pregnant Debbie and her beau Andy, as well as Shelly, the joker. This was the first film to begin to pad out the cast for additional victims however. In the initial group we also have Chuck and Chilli, two stoners who don’t even appear to be part of the cluster and, also, have been cast with actors much older than the rest. This failed Cheech and Chong duo appear to be there for cheap laughs (which they don’t provide) and easy kills (which they as happy to be part of). We also have, in an interesting addition, fan favourites Ali, Fox and Loco a biker gang who take a quite understandable dislike to Shelly.
It is in the joker, Shelly, that we have perhaps the most important part of Jason’s lore and perhaps the final part of the jigsaw (before the utility belt of Part VI). Shelly is more mean-spirited in the role than previous funny friends Ned and Stu. His pursuit of Vera is particularly uncomfortable and, although the actor Larry Zerner is a fan favourite at conventions, it is difficult not to cheer his demise. So, firstly, Shelly is one of the first victims of the franchise where we are almost on Jason’s side and it is this which comes to be part of the films as the years role on – supporting Jason in his pursuit of unlikeable and/or stupid victims. Again, this moved Jason into iconic status alongside Michael and Freddy where audiences would turn up on the opening weekend to see the killer and not really care about the film as a whole.
It is through Shelly though that we find our missing element – his mask. As per the script, ‘Clad in a black scuba suit and white faceless mask, the rotund figure rises out of the water onto the shore. In one hand he holds a small spear-gun. With the other, he removes his mask. It’s Shelly!’. So, thanks to our unlikeable little joker, Jason finally found the last visual element that put him alongside Michael and Freddy, his hockey mask. Whereas the others appeared fully formed, it is interesting that each F13 film builds on the others. Different directors, writers and actors add their own elements in each film and this carries on right through to the Kane Hodder era. It really feels like Jason grows and develops in each film, perhaps not as a character but as a personification of backwoods horror.
As mentioned, the effects are nothing if not fun. The spear gun to Vera’s eye always provides a jolt, as does the intestine heavy demise of the hand-standing Andy. Rick’s eye-pop demise is grim but also, let’s be honest, cheap Halloween kid’s costume funny. Also, the incomparable Stan Winston designed the make-up for Jason, heralding back to Tom Savini’s original design for Ari Lehman. Although he is briefly silhouetted at the very beginning, moving between Edna’s drying sheets, it is when he lifts his mask to reveal his identity to Chris that we finally seem him and, yes, he is indeed monstrous. It is in these final moments that we also see the development of the unkillable Jason as Chris beats him and then hangs him, only for Jason to lift his body out of the noose before the final fatal (ahem) blow.
All in all, this still has the original scuzzy feel of the first two films but is clearly self-aware enough to begin to have some fun amidst the horror. This was the first film that began to feel like a rollercoaster, a cinematic thrill-ride with laughs amidst the violence. Although none of the characters really stand out in this one, there is no Alice or Ginny to pull us through the trees, they are a solid ensemble and, if nothing else, the characters are still largely likeable (something that would be forgotten more and more until Michael Bay’s remake populated by the most heinous individuals put in a F13 film). It did feel though, that there was still more to say. Maybe a final chapter that could give the audience a conclusion to the bloodshed. Maybe there was another family nearby. Maybe there was some teenagers coming to visit and maybe, just maybe, there would be a golden retriever with particularly strong survival instincts…
