Thirteen Facts About Friday The 13th Part III - 3D: 1. Of the cinematic features released in 3D in the early 1980's, a list which includes Jaws 3D, Treasure Of The Four Crowns, Amityville 3D, Comin' At Ya! and Parasite, this third Friday The 13th installment's $36.2 million gross makes it the most successful 3D film ever released. 2. Headlining star Dana Kimmell, who played Chris Higgins, was offered the role because the producers liked her performance in a previous teen stalker film entitled Sweet Sixteen. 3. This installment marked the first appearance of Jason Voorhees in his trademark hockey mask, which he took from an unlucky prankster named Shelly. Larry Zerner, who portrayed Shelly in the film, is now an attorney in Los Angeles. 4. Michael Avallone wrote a novelization of the film, marking the first time a Friday The 13th movie ever enjoyed a prosaic incarnation. Several years later, the movie was novelized a second time by Simon Hawke, who also wrote tie-in books for Parts I, II and VI during the same period. After that brief run, no other novels have appeared thus far for a Friday The 13th movie. 5. Part II's director Steve Miner helmed this one as well, marking the only instance of a director with two Friday The 13th's under his belt. 6. Although the script is credited to Carol Watson and Martin Kitrosser, there was a third writer (Petru Popescu) who received no screen credit. 7. The disco-tinged theme song, written by Harry Manfredini and Michael Zager and performed by an act called Hot Ice, was briefly available as a 45 RPM single in 1982, on the Grammavision label. 8. As neither Tom Savini nor Carl Fullerton were available for special make-up effects this time around, a trio of effects artists (Doug White, Allan Apone and Frank Carrisosa) were commissioned for the job. Their new design for Jason, as instructed by Miner, was a combination of both Savini's and Fullerton's designs. 9. The eyeball-popping sequence for Rick (Paul Kratka) involved a monofilament wire which ran from the eye socket in the artificial head to an area between the two camera lenses, set up to maximize the 3D effect. The eyeball was projected down the length of the wire and successfully accomplished the effect, whereas two previous methods (including firing the eyeball from the socket with compressed air) had failed. 10. The "Higgins Haven" setting for the storyline was filmed at the Valuzet Movie Ranch in Saugas, California. 11. Richard Brooker, the third actor to don the Jason mantle, started his career as a trapeze artist in Europe. He jokingly remembers Miner instructing him never to ask "What's my motivation?", because in Miner's vision, Jason had no motivation. 12. The outfit Jason acquires shortly after the opening credits (an olive green work shirt and khaki trousers) pretty much sustains him for the rest of the series, although the hockey mask is replaced in Part VIII. 13. This was the only installment in the series to be filmed in 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio. Hence, the opening segment, featuring scenes from Part II which were shot in 1.85:1, had to be cropped accordingly to accommodate the new format. When Part III was eventually transferred to pan-and-scan video, the already-altered Part II shots from the prologue were further cropped again. The final result, on video, is a laughably blown-up image for the Part II footage shown in this movie. Thankfully, the letterboxed DVD version mostly corrects the problem. << Back