Rish's Reviews
Having survived the events of the last movie (and managing to gain eighty pounds and lose all his hair), Jason Vorhees stalks the woods near Crystal Lake. When a van-load of young people come to their sleepy vacation cabin, they find this out firsthand.
1998 Review: If you can see this movie in the theater in all its three-dimensional 'glory,' then do so. But otherwise, this is the one to skip. After making a worthy sequel to a fairly good movie, Steve Miner fails utterly in about every category. I mean, this movie is BAD! Not scary, not gory, not funny, not exciting...not good. Of the first three films, this had the most attractive cast (all three female leads were 'hotties'), but that's the only superlative in this film. Sure, Jason gets his trademark hockey mask in this movie, but did anyone else notice that he is suddenly a hulking, bald, 50 year old man? And, is he even scary to anyone by this point? Worst of all was the insidious (if you can think of a more derogatory word, please tell me) dialogue (no less than two characters asked aloud, "Where is that [blood] coming from?"), which makes me wonder if a pair of Junior High English students won a contest and got to write it. Characters got more and more stupid as the minutes turned into...well, more minutes, and the only one who was even remotely likable met up with Jason offscreen. This is one of those films you rent for 47 cents then feel ripped off by. At the very end (and I mean VERY), there is a slightly scary scene--a couple of cool images that are, of course, revealed to be the D-word-- but even that's ripping off the ending of the first film. I believe there would have been a redeemable part or two if viewed in 3-D, but in 2-D, it is best viewed in its package, on the shelf.
Best Scare: The chilling 'dream' image of Jason in the window was actually really frightening.
I'd Recommend It To: People who claim another film in the Jason series is the worst one.
2002 Review: Something oft dreamt about by tyranist and me, I was lucky enough tonight to be able to see Friday the 13th 3 the way it was meant to be seen: at a local theater showing it in all its 3-D glory.
And dude, it was an experience! The difference between seeing the original on video and in the theater was startling, but the difference between "F3" on tape and in tri-dimensional projection was astounding. It was like a whole different movie. We screamed, we laughed, we cheered, we sighed, we laughed, we booed, we moaned, we laughed, and we applauded. Oh, and we laughed. I don't know how many in the crowd were stoned, but my enjoyment was completely genuine.
As we've both mentioned, in the years since we've started this website, tyranist and I have come to realise that a lot of the movies we disliked in the early days really weren't that bad. And in the case of Friday the 13th 3-D, I completely take back what I said in my original review. Except for the comment about the girls. They were even more beautiful on the big screen.
Okay, okay, it was still a bad movie (the acting was awful, the writing was terrible, the characters were stupid), but a great bad movie. The murders were so diverse and clever (death by machete, by harpoon, by knife, by fireplace poker (hot), by pitchfork, by bare hands, by electrocution), that nobody ever got bored. The music was ear-piercing, and extraordinarily bad (I simply must find a copy of that disco theme). The poor fat/ugly kid inspired so much sympathy from the audience, probably because, frankly, we were all him. And he doesn't even get to score!
Best Scare: I gotta tell you, some of the stuff really worked with the 3-D (for every lame yo-yo or popcorn shot, there was a snake or stuffed skunk or axe handle or popping eyeball that shot right toward you in a totally effective way), especially the harpoon shot, which I actually tried to duck. No kidding.
I'd Recommend It To: Look, it ain't a great movie, but I was overly critical in my above review, and if you can see it in 3-D (if you can see anything in 3-D, really), you simply must check it out.

The tyranist's thoughts
I recently re-screened this one partially because I thought we hadn't updated the Skulls for the most recent generation and partially because I remembered how lame my reviews used to be. The one for this movie was like five lines of spew. Anyway, you deserve better.
I know that Rish really digs on this one, but you have to remember that he has the advantage over the rest of us: he's seen it in 3D. His next argument to me is always, "but the chicks are sooooo hot in this one." I'll give him that, but hot chicks alone do not make a noteworthy film. Especially if almost none of them get naked.
This movie for me is really where the series stops being even kind of scary and steps over into the realm of slammed together, slapstick horror. It becomes fairly obvious that the production crew was really going after good gimmick kills. Characters wander in and out of the picture without so much as a "Hi, my name's Bob. I'll be your robber tonight." Even more annoying is that this is the one in which they start to just ignore the mythos of their own little world. Jason stops being just a psychopathic bully and becomes something more. Something supernatural. On top of that, even after they show us the last five minutes of Part 2, they then disregard that entire film.
Few of the characters were even sympathetic in my eyes and the dialogue often suffers from triteness. While the production values on this one are reasonable, it is apparent that most of the money was spent on the 3D gimmickry.
If you are just watching the series because you are curious, you can probably stop at Part 2, unless of course, you can catch this one in the theatre in 3D. On the other hand, if you are like I was as a child and just hanging out on a Halloween night marathoning, there's plenty to poke fun at here and you should have a good time.