The Curator of Scholck #167 by Jeff Shuster

Friday the 13^th Part 3

I didn’t watch it in 3D. 3D is stupid.

I have the strangest sense of déjà vu. I feel like I’ve tried reviewing this movie before. What movie? 1982’s Friday the 13^th Part III from director Steve Miner. Since today is Friday the 13^th, it behooves me to cover yet another chapter in the saga of Jason Voorhees. I think the last time I tried reviewing this movie, I got an intense headache and took the week off .

Truth is, this is not a good movie, but it does mark the first time we see Mr. Voorhees don the titular hockey mask.

Frankly, I think the burlap sack was a better choice.

Where do I begin? The movie starts out showing us the last ten minutes of Friday the 13^th Part II (in case we’d forgotten). That’s the part where our heroine, Ginny (Amy Steel), tricks Jason by pretending to be his dead mother, Mrs. Voorhees, by wearing his mother’s sweater and speaking assertively Jason falls for it and she hacks at him with a machete, but he gets right back up after she makes her escape.

The next day, we’re introduced to the owners of own some kind of convenience store/rabbit farm. The husband is a bit of a schlub. The wife is a bit of a nag. He eats too much junk food. She has curlers in her hair. He drinks beer while pooping on the toilet.

Jason murders him.

Jason murders her.

I don’t care about either of them. I would like one of those chocolate donuts the husband was eating. Mmmmmmmmm. Chocolate.

We’re then introduced to a third set of characters. There’s Chris (Dana Kimmel) and her boyfriend named Rick (Paul Kratka). They’re joined by their friends, Debbie (Tracie Savage) a young woman who happens to be pregnant along with her boyfriend, Andy (Jeffrey Rodgers). There’s also a couple of pot smoking hippies named Chuck (David Katims) and Chili (Rachel Howard), a prankster named Shelly (Larry Zerner), and Shelly’s blind date, Vera (Catherine Parks).

Let’s talk about Shelly and Vera. I haven’t witnessed a love story so depressing since The Last American Virgin. There’s no delicate way to say this: Shelly is lacking in the looks department. Vera is played a Miss America runner up. Will she look past his looks and find the real beauty within? No. Why? Because Shelly is an obnoxious loser. He’s the Ducky of horror cinema.

Shelly is insecure so he pulls pranks like playing dead with a rubber hatchet and fake blood dribbling down his forehead. Everyone thinks he’s been murdered until Andy tickles him revealing a Shelly that’s very much alive. The group hates him now. They don’t find his jokes very funny. He tags along with Vera over to a local convenience store, peruses some dirty magazine until Vera demands that Shelly pays for her stuff at checkout. Some gang members who look like they stepped right out of Death Wish 3 accost them. Shelly manages to run over their motorcycles with Rick’s car.

 This doesn’t win Vera over as she flat out rejects him later that evening. Shelly wears a wetsuit and hockey mask in an attempt to scare her. He doesn’t understand why she doesn’t like him, why she can’t look past his looks. He leaves in a huff. Vera feels bad, but is angered when Shelly returns wearing that hockey mask and pointing a harpoon gun at her. She realizes that isn’t Shelly under that hockey mask. It’s Jason Voorhees. The harpoon shoots out toward Vera. A horror legend is born.

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Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.