Retrospective Film Review

Friday the 13th Part III (1982) • 40 Years Later

Jason Voorhees stalks a group of friends who’s just arrived to spend the weekend at a cabin near Crystal Lake.

A title card humbly reads Friday the 13th Part III, but why shy from the marketing stunt of Part 3: 3D? Everyone knows this is the one where Jason Voorhees swings his machete right at us, the audience. The gimmick certainly didn’t add dimension to the characters or story. Paramount Pictures, Georgetown Productions, and director Steve Miner knew 3D would put butts in seats in 1982. From VHS and DVD to Blu-ray and streaming, many people over the past 40 years have only experienced standard 2D Jason, until a home 3D release in 2009… so why did Friday the 13th abandon this “new dimension of terror” so soon?

This campfire story starts with the Spanish western comedy Comin’ At Ya! (1981), which revived 3D from the 1950s for a new generation. Managing to open in only two US cities, 90,000 anaglyph glasses were manufactured… and the idea blew up. Expanding to around 200 theatres, they were selling out of glasses at 40,000 a…