Friday the 13th Part III

Friday the 13th Part III is a 1982 American slasher film directed by Steve Miner, produced by Frank Mancuso Jr., and starring Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, and Richard Brooker. It is the sequel to Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) and the third installment in the Friday the 13th franchise. Set directly after the events of the previous film, the plot follows Chris Higgins, a teenage girl (Kimmell), and her friends who go on a trip to a homestead near Crystal Lake where an injured Jason Voorhees (Brooker) has taken refuge until re-emerging for another killing spree. The film marks the first appearance of Jason's signature hockey mask, which has since become a trademark of both the character and the franchise, as well as an icon in American cinema and the horror genre.

The original storyline was supposed to focus on a post-traumatic Ginny Field from the prior installment. However, this concept was abandoned when actress Amy Steel declined to reprise her role. Martin Kitrosser, a script supervisor on the previous two films, co-wrote the screenplay with Carol Watson. Unlike the previous two installments, Friday the 13th Part III was filmed in California rather than the east coast. Paramount shot the film in 3-D, a choice suggested by Martin Sadoff, an associate of producer Frank Mancuso Jr. The 3-D technology used in the film complicated the shooting process, which lasted several months in the spring of 1982.

Friday the 13th Part III was theatrically released in select theaters in 3-D, and is the only film in the series to be released in that format. The film was intended to end the series as a trilogy; however, unlike many of its successors, the film did not include a moniker in its title to indicate it as such. The film was theatrically released on August 13, 1982, grossing $36.7 million at the US box office on a budget of $2.2 million, and received negative reviews from critics. It was the first film to remove E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial from the number-one box office spot and became the second highest-grossing horror film of 1982, behind Poltergeist. It has the third most attendance of the Friday the 13th franchise, with approximately 11,762,400 tickets sold. A direct sequel, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, was released two years later.