Friday the 13th: Part 3 starts right after the end of the previous movie. In case you forgot the end of the previous movie, they show you the last 6 minutes of it at the beginning of this one so it's a really good and quick memory refresher. Jason was quite hurt at the end of his last battle. He has moved down the road a bit to recover, but he does stay on Crystal Lake. He ends up near a cabin called Higgins Haven.
Higgins Haven happens to be a private family cabin that is about to be filled with four couples who are just looking for a nice and quite retreat. I'm sure if they knew that Jason has taken up residence next door, they probably would have just stayed at home, but they didn't know that their relaxing vacation was going to turn deadly. The main couple is obviously Chris (Dana Kimmell) and Rick (Paul Kratka). From the beginning, you'll probably guess that they're going to be the possible survivors. They haven't seen each other in a while though, because Chris has been avoiding the cabin for a reason that you'll find out later on.
The other three couples are the red-shirts of the movie. The only one of them that is very notable is Shelly (Larry Zerner). He's the jokester of the group. He's always playing pranks, like pretending to have an axe lodged in his head. He's also the only one who wasn't dating his partner on this trip. In fact, this vacation is their blind date, which sounds scary enough to me. Shelly is quite scared by this too, which makes him act out the jokester part even more, which of course makes the group think that when Jason shows up, it is just Shelly playing around again.
Just to make matters even more complex, at the beginning of the movie, Shelly and Vera (Catherine Parks) head to the little store to pick up some supplies. While they're there, they manage to pick a fight with a biker gang. Unbeknownst to them, the gang follows them back to the cabin to get revenge. This means that our happy couples now have to deal with the gang and Jason. But then the gang has to deal with Jason too, so it gets pretty interesting.
Jason has finally found his signature hockey mask in this movie. He still isn't the superhuman character that he is in the later movies though, which explains why he is continually leaving at least one survivor in each movie. This time he just might get them all.
As I mentioned before, if you really want to get up close and personal with Jason, you can choose to watch the movie in 3D. This is the old school 3D where you wear the glasses that have one red lens and one blue lens. The 3D glasses are neat in that they are printed like a hockey mask on the front. You get two pair with the movie. If you try and wear the glasses from any of the new Real D 3D that you might have seen in theaters lately, they will not work. The first 6 minutes that are recap from the previous movie aren't in 3D, but after the opening credits are done, all sorts of things will pop out at you.
Honestly, this is my least favorite of the Friday the 13th movies so far. That doesn't mean that it is bad, but it's starting to feel a little repetitive by this time. Given that this is only number 3 out of eleven, you should definitely watch it before going on to the next since they do change Jason up a little pretty soon. Even if it's not the best one so far, it is still quite good.
