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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - August 13th

"FRIDAY THE 13TH, PART 3" released in 1982

Having been seriously wounded after the events of the last movie (Friday the 13th, Part 2), Jason Voorhees seeks refuge in a cabin on the shores of a nearby lake. Soon, another group of vacationing co-eds arrive and Jason, donning a new signature look, starts his killing spree again in Friday the 13th Part 3!

Watch the Friday the 13th Part 3 trailer below!

 

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A vacationing group of friends - Debbie (Tracie Savage), her boyfriend Andy (Jeffrey Rogers), prankster Shelley (Larry Zerner), his date Vera (Catherine Parks), and stoners Chuck and Chili (David Katims and Rachel Howard) - arrive at the lakeside cabin of Chris Higgins (Dana Kimmell) for the weekend. As the group settle in, Shelly and Vera go into town for supplies and run afoul of a local biker gang, Ali (Nick Savage), Loco (Kevin O'Brien) and Fox (Gloria Charles) at a convenience store. After Shelly runs over their bikes in his Volkswagon, the gang follow them back to the cabin for revenge. Intending to siphon gas to burn the cabin's barn down in retaliation, little do they know that hiding inside recovering from his wounds is Jason Voorhees (Richard Brooker), having taken refuge in the barn earlier after murdering two shopkeepers in town the night before. The bikers are dispatched one by one as they enter the barn, followed sometime later by Shelly, who is still carrying his speargun and hockey mask after pranking Vera down at the lake. Jason slashes Shelly's throat, dons his hockey mask (replacing the burlap sack that usually covers his face), and dispatches Vera with the speargun to the eye! Meanwhile, Chris and her boyfriend Rick (Paul Kratka) are returning to the cabin, after Chris relates to him that two years earlier she was attacked by a horriblely disfigured man (not knowing his true identity as Jason) and that was the real reason she moved away from Higgin's Haven, and not because of Rick, as he had supposed. Once they arrive back at the cabin, Chris discovers the bodies of each of her murdered friends strewn throughout the house and is confronted by Jason. Discovering that Jason is the same man that attacked her before, Chris must now survive her second, and possibly, last encounter with Jason Voorhees!

Vera Sanchez: [sees Jason now wearing a goalie mask] Who are you?
[Jason points a speargun at her]
Vera Sanchez: What are you doing?
[Jason is still pointing the speargun at her]
Vera Sanchez: Hey cut that out, that's not funny!
[Jason shoots Vera in her left eye with the speargun. She falls dead into the water. Jason casually drops the spent speargun to the ground and walks off]

Top:   Local bikers, Fox (Gloria Charles), Ali (Nick Savage) and Loco (Kevin O'Brien) 

causing trouble;

Above:   Jason (Richard Brooker) appears for the first time wearing his hockey mask

and dispatches Vera (Catherine Parks) with a speargun!

With huge success of Friday the 13th Part 2 with the introduction of new series villian Jason Voorhees, producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. and director Steve Miner quickly collaborated with screenwriters Martin Kitrosser, Carol Watson and Petru Popescu on a new story featuring their new killer Jason. The original plan for Part 3 involved Ginny (Amy Steel) from the previous film being confined to a psychiatric hospital. Suffering from the trauma inflicted on her during the ordeal with Jason, she eventually finds that, intent on revenge, he has tracked her down, and he begins to murder the staff and other patients at the hospital. Steel ultimately declined the offer to return to the series as she was busy with other projects (but has since said that she thinks she should have accepted), and the screenplay was rewritten - presumably also due to Halloween II's similar plotline that was already in production at the time. To prevent the film's plot being leaked, the production used the fake title "Crystal Japan" after a David Bowie song. This began an on-again, off-again tradition of giving Friday the 13th films David Bowie song titles during filming.

With most of the crew from that last Friday film returning, including director Steve Miner, the filmmakers wanted to take advantage of the revived craze in 3-D, hiring Martin Jay Sadoff to supervise the Part 3's 3-D effects. Not knowing it at the time, but Sadoff would soon make the most significant contribution to not only the film, but the entire franchise! The cast for Part 3 included veteran TV actress Tracie Savage and with the help of her mother Judy Savage, and her company The Savage Agency, another client of the agency, Paul Kratka, was brought to the Part 3 production for reading a part (and eventually be cast as Rick). Catherine Parks had been crowned Miss Florida at the Miss America Pageant in 1978 before relocating to California to pursue an acting career and had been in Los Angeles only a few months when she auditioned for the role of Vera. Larry Zerner was cast as Shelly when the producers spotted him handing out fliers for a horror movie and asked him if he'd want to star in one himself! The most troublesome part to cast was the lead of the film. With Amy Steel unable to return, the producers were forced to audition numerous actresses, resulting in Paul Kratka being called back several times to read alongside them. The role of Chris Higgins would eventually go to Dana Kimmell, who would request that, for personal reasons, any reference to her character having sex be removed from the script.

Chris Higgins: [to Jason] No! You can't be alive!

Top:   Chris (Dana Kimmell) face's Jason for the second time!;

Above:   The seemingly unstoppable Jason Voorhees!

For the first time in franchise, a Friday The 13th film would not be filmed on the east coast, with filming instead taking place at the Valuzet Movie Ranch in Saugus, California. Producers told the East Coast-based Steve Daskawicz if he wanted to play Jason as he did for most of Part 2 he'd have to pay for his own airfare out to California. He objected, so the part was re-cast with British ex-trapeze artist Richard Brooker. Being tall, at 6'3", but not that bulky, the slim and toned Brooker wore foam padding under his clothes, and did all of his own stunts. Part 3 was the first production to use the Marks 3-D system, and it was a constant learning process. The earliest scenes they filmed, such as the opening tracking shot and Shelly and the bikers at the convenience store, had to be completely re-shot due to difficulties with the 3D camera. Plus, they had to be careful about which colors to include in costumes, and everything had to be lit far brighter than normal. It took hours to set-up individual shots meaning the actors on the film spent most of their time simply sitting around waiting for the next shot to be set-up, a common on-set experience for actors but just far longer than normal this time (many of the actors would recall that there was far more focus on finding cool 3D things for them to do than actually bothering with character motivation or acting!).

There have been many conflicting stories concerning just who was responsible for Jason wearing his iconic hockey mask! One story was that 3-D effects supervisor Martin Jay Sadoff, while testing potential masks to use for Jason, he pulled out a Detroit Red Wings goalie mask for the test. Director Steve Miner loved the look and decided to use it in the film. In fact two different masks were actually used in the film. Shelley starts out with a leather hockey mask that fit his face, but it was too small to comfortably fit Richard Brooker over the Jason makeup. So, the special effects department designed a second mask that was slightly larger and painted it to match the original. It was made out of clear plastic and painted from behind to protect the paint from chipping and causing visual continuity problems.

TRIVIA:   The only Friday The 13th where no characters actually say the name Jason!

Top:   Richard Brooker performing a stunt;

Above:   Stan Winston, Steve Susskind, Richard Brooker, and Steve Miner

Several deaths in the film had to be cut to avoid an X rating from the MPAA, which include the following: Andy's death, which showed his leg being cut off and his stomach being ripped open; Vera's death for too much gore and looking too real; Edna's death was cut because of excessive blood flow; Chili's impalement was cut because of a shot showing steaming blood hitting the floor; Debbie's death scene was also cut, which originally showed blood running down her chest and splattering on her face. There were also multiple scripted endings, such as Chris and Ali (Nick Savage) surviving (as opposed to just Chris) but Jason's body being missing when the cops arrive. In the first ending they actually filmed, though, Chris dreams she's in the canoe, hears Rick (Paul Kratka) calling to her from the house, and she races to greet him at the door.And then Jason emerges from the door instead of Rick and cuts Chris' head clean off with a machete. They decided it was too depressing to kill off the sole survivor, even if just in a dream, and that Jason sans mask just looked too monster-like. Master make-up effects artist Stan Winston was brought in to create and sculp Jason's face for filming the alternate ending, but was sadly never used.

By some estimates, Paramount was forced to spend between $8 and $10 million to actually get Part 3 into theaters. That's because they ended up making, supplying, and installing the individual lenses and silver screens required to project Part 3 in all 1,079 theaters which showed the film opening weekend, August 1982. They also had to train the projectionists at theaters, and establish a 24-hour hotline for all of the theaters encountering problems with the 3D. But the expenses was worth it with Friday the 13th Part 3 grossing over $35 million at the box office (against a less than $3 million dollar budget!) and was the first film to remove E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial from the number-one box office spot! Part 3 would go on to become the tenth highest-grossing R-rated film of 1982, the second-highest grossing horror film of 1982 (behind Poltergeist), and the sixth largest box office opening of 1982. For his appearance in the film, Jason Voorhees was nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains as one of the Top 50 Villains. In a retrospective, Scott Meslow of The Week called it "an under-sung camp classic — cornier and goofier than either of its predecessors" and cited the film's 3-D effects as paving the way for later horror films which also used the technique.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   12%