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Friday The 13th Part 3 3-D: Deluxe Edition
R1 - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (24th March 2009). |
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The Film
 By the time the third installment in a series rolls around is usually when the complaining begins. First there’s talk of it not being as good as the original, or worries about everything going on for far too long, unless it’s a trilogy, but it’s fairly rare to see the third in a series or trilogy one up both the first and second films. Though “Star Trek: The Search for Spock” (1984) gave Leonard Nemoy his first chance behind the director’s chair, it definitely wasn’t the strongest follow up to the far more epic “Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn” (1982), or even back in the horror vein, “Saw II” (2005) is the strongest in the “Saw” franchise, even though “Saw III” (2006) and “Saw IV” (2007) make a sort of ‘Darren Lynn Bousman Trilogy’ inside of the "Saw" series itself and work better together, though on it’s own “Saw III” is a weaker installation of the series and finds it’s stride when watched back to back with “Saw IV.” Yet when you get to “Friday the 13th Part 3” you realize that, in terms of what you’ve come to know and love about the “Friday the 13th” saga (1980-2001), Part 3 is the truest yet, giving Jason (Richard Brooker) his signature mask and creating his more violent and destructive presence in the series. This third installment makes a few quick changes to the formula, still picking up directly where the second film left off, using a slightly edited version of the last few minutes to start the film, but this time establishing that Jason did in fact survive and escape this encounter. Around the same time Chris (Dana Kimmell) and a group of friends head up to a family cabin up at Crystal Lake for a weekend of fun, even though Chris was apparently assaulted by what the audience recognizes to be as Jason a few years earlier. After plans of fun and games up at the cabin, including a Tommy Chong look alike that similarly loves the weed, Shelly (Larry Zerner) gets into a bit of trouble with a biker gang after he knocks down their motorcycles outside the general store. Soon they come up to the cabin to wreak some havoc on the campers, with some classic biker moves like siphoning gas and playing in a barn, they wind up in Jason’s way as he comes to attack the campers as he quickly works his way through their tough attitudes and leather jackets, only to move on to those promiscuous youths living nearby. First and foremost, the film itself improves on the previous two by simply acknowledging that this movie is intended to create 2 things: gore and a final girl scenario, both of which it executes fairly well. Jason’s kills demonstrate the creativity lacking from the second film, including a harpoon gun, plenty of machete action and some great use of farming equipment to impale people and pin them to walls. The ridiculousness of the kills is only amplified by the 3-D aspect of the film as all of the 3-D gag kills bring an extra level of hilarity to the film as you can easily spot the monofilament line taking the harpoon gun directly at the screen or a character decides to yo-yo for no particular reason other than to make the audience go “wooooaaaaaaa.” Add in the fact that the characters aren’t attempted to give too much depth, other than Chris’ mysterious assault by Jason years ago, which is fine since all you really need is a tiny bit of depth on the main character and some good Jason action to make for an enjoyable experience. The rest of the characters in the film are fairly forgettable, except for Shelly who is almost a Seth Rogen doppelganger from the past, except less of a stoner and more of a horror nerd as he acts as the main fake-out gag character as he continually pops out of corners and surprises people. Gags aside though, the 3-D aspect of the film is a blessing and a curse, in 2-D the gags are just as funny or even more comical as they don’t pop out of the screen but just stand as some blatant inserts to try and prove that 3-D was really necessary. At the same time though the video quality of the 3-D is really a headache to watch as the included 2 sets of 3-D glasses allow you to see some of the 3-D moments, but at the same time give you a headache for most of the film as everyone has a strange reddish halo surrounding them for most of the movie and sort of damage your vision after the film (if you close each eye you notice that everything is seemingly tinted red or blue for the next hour or so). Overall, the third part of “Friday the 13th” starts to show off that the producers have started to recognize what would make the series fun: a big imposing Jason that just loves to kill the youth that come near his territory, but doing so in some creative and weird ways. The characters in the film are enjoyable to the point of not being terribly annoying, except for Rick (Paul Kratka) who keeps bugging Chris for sex and is generally just acts like a dick. The 3-D on this deluxe edition is worth a watch, but you may need some Tylenol or other headache medicine afterwards to counter for the poor 3-D transfer.
Video
As I mentioned before, the film is presented in both 2-D and 3-D versions, both in a 2.35:1 anamorphic aspect ratio. The set gets some marks for finally including the 3-D version, but like I said, it’s a bit of a headache in punishment after the fact. Like the other ‘deluxe editions” it boasts a high definition mastering, but it’s still fairly mediocre quality and doesn’t really make a difference to the 3-D version, no matter how close or far away you sit from the screen it all gets a bit blurry (plus tons of the 3-D shots are just slightly out of focus).
Audio
This edition comes with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound mix, there are also English, French and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono tracks. This edition's 5.1 track is about the same as the other Paramount release, falling somewhere between the original and the second as there’s a bit of movement in the sound, but it’s still an obvious mono transfer that falls a bit flat. However the sound effects that are matched up to the kills are a bit more ridiculous and fun to listen to and work better with the film overall. Subtitles are included in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish subtitles.
Extras
The only special feature is the theatrical trailer, which runs 2 minutes and 10 seconds, unless you count the 3-D cut of the film as a bonus feature. In the previously released box set there was an audio commentary on the box set of the film, but unfortunately it didn’t make it onto this edition.
Overall
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