Friday The 13th At The Home Drive-In: Friday the 13th Part III 3D (1982)

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As I said in a previous post, Friday the 13th Part 3 3D was my very first Friday the 13th movie. I somehow convinced my Dad to take me and friend to see it. My Dad hated it, but my friend and I thought it was great! And that was in no small part because of the 3D experience.

Friday the 13th Part 3 3D was also my very first 3D movie. Well, on the big screen, that is. As I mentioned in that previous post, I had been lucky enough to see Revenge Of The Creature (1955) in 3D on television. For those who may not remember, that was a bit of a thing back then; 3D movies being shown on TV. The first one I remember was a movie called Gorilla at Large (1954) – and it should have been the first 3D movie I ever saw! There was a big ad campaign leading up to the broadcast, urging us all to get our 3D glasses at 7-11. I remember biking over with my brother and buying a spiffy pair of cardboard glasses with red and blue lenses. On the way home, I put on the glasses and urged my brother to “do something”, expecting that the glasses would magically make whatever he did more exciting. But alas, my brother’s actions looked no more three dimensional with the glasses than without.

The unfortunate twist to this story is that my parents suddenly announced that we were heading up to the lake for our summer vacation at exactly the same time as the TV broadcast of Gorilla at Large. There was no way I would be able to watch it. I remember pleading with my parents: “But I bought 3D glasses especially so I could watch this movie! They’ll be useless if I don’t stay home and watch it.”

My Dad said the same thing that he said when I found out that I would miss the TV broadcast premiere of Prom Night (1980): “They’ll show it again.” But they never showed Prom Night again – and they certainly never showed Gorilla at Large after that first time.

When I got back to the city, my friends all told me that I didn’t miss much. “The 3D didn’t work” they all said. I didn’t know whether to believe them or not. Perhaps they were just trying to make me feel better, but it was no use. The 3D glasses I spent my hard earned allowance on were sitting on a shelf, unused for the better part of a year – and I didn’t think I would ever get to use them.

But then a miracle happened. The TV guide listed Revenge Of The Creature 3D one Saturday afternoon. There was no publicity blitz this time. Nobody telling us to buy our glasses at 7-11. I guess they assumed that we already had them – and I certainly did.

I watched the movie at a friend’s house, and I was blown away when someone in the movie threw a rope to another character and it wound up in the middle of my friend’s living room! This 3D was definitely working! And my friend told me it was so much better than Gorilla at Large had been. I still wasn’t sure if I believed him, but I was happy because my 3D glasses had not gone to waste – and the 3D experience had been even cooler than I thought it would be.

It was the same friend that came with me and my Dad to see Friday the 13th Part 3 3D a year later or so. And as I said in that previous post, it was so much more intense of a 3D experience. For us, it was the gateway to many other 3D movies, including Jaws 3-D (1983), Amityville 3-D (1983), and Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone 3D (1983).  Our absolute favourite, as far as 3D goes, was Treasure of the Four Crowns 3D (1983) – not because it was the best movie, but rather because it was an absolutely relentless 3D experience. That movie threw everything out at us. Even in a boring talking scene, people would hand each other stuff and it would hit us right between the eyes. It was amazing!

         

For some odd reason, modern 3D movies don’t seem to do this. They show us 3D landscapes, and plenty of images with depth. But they mostly seem to shy away from throwing stuff right into our faces. I seem to recall Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone 3D being that way as well – and I remember Siskel and Ebert criticizing it for that. They suggested that the filmmakers were trying to prove that they were above that sort of cheap effect; that they had more class than that. But this raises a simple question:

If you’re making a 3D movie, and you’re not throwing things out at the audience, what exactly do you think the point is?

Friday the 13th Part 3 3D is a good 3D movie. It doesn’t go completely over the top like Treasure of the Four Crowns 3D, but it throws enough stuff out at us to keep us on our toes. It was also my first Friday the 13th movie, and my introduction to Jason. It was a tough one to beat, in terms of body count and gore. Even the highly anticipated Pt 4, The Final Chapter seemed a little lightweight to me after seeing Pt 3 a couple of times. In reality it wasn’t, but that’s how it seemed to me the first time I saw it.

For years I longed to see Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3D again. It was out on VHS and Beta in 2D – and it was only ever on TV in 2D. So, I was particularly thrilled when Paramount released the remastered 3D DVD a few years back. It uses the old fashioned red and blue glasses, but that’s okay. It gave me back an important experience of my childhood, and I can confirm that it is a #NotQuiteClassicCinema favourite.

I would still love to see a a 3D Blu-ray version, but until one comes out, I will keep watching my 3D DVD. Probably about once out of every eight times I celebrate #FridayThe13thAtTheHomeDriveIn.

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