Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982)

A bunch of kids go to a campsite for the express purpose of being stalked and killed by Jason until there is only one girl left who has special Jason killing abilities. I know this sounds like every other Friday the 13th movie, and that's true. When it comes to Jason movies, you have to put that aside and criticize them based on the ideas they contain. Or, failing that, you rate them by whether or not they have a bunch of scenes of people spinning yo-yos towards the camera in 3d.

The only way you can tell these movies apart- especially after the first two and before they started adding psychic girls and trips to Outer Space- is by the cast of characters who will be killed. This entry in the series does not disappoint. Besides the boring heroine and her equally boring boyfriend you've got:

• a chubby guy that constantly plays annoying pranks
• token "minority" girl
  
• the guy that goes around walking on his hands all over the place and his girlfriend
• the pot-smoking hippy couple that look a good 20 years older than everyone else
• the multicultural street gang just hanging out in some small town grocery store

Historically this is an important film, because this is where Jason gets his iconic hockey mask. And it is also the only entry shot in 3d. The 3d effects are not great and you have to wear those red/blue glasses so god help you if you have to wear glasses or one of your eyes is stronger than the other. Luckily the latest disc has both the 2d and 3d versions of this movie and once you get tired of subjecting yourself to headache torture you can switch to the 2d version, and then the 3d effects go from painful to goofy.

Overall it's not a bad chapter in the Friday the 13th saga and even a bad Friday the 13th is better than most slashers.