Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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shrine to his mother: Mrs. Voorhees’s rotting dismembered head sitting on a table
surrounded by candles.
The added shot of Jason getting up off of the ground serves two functions.
First, it reduces the amount of time necessary to set up the significant narrative plot
points for the understanding of the rest of the film. This creates a more manageable
preface that contributes to the narrative flow instead of interrupting it. Secondly, this
eliminates the facial reveal, which Conrich attributes great significance to: “I would
argue that in the slasher film, more frightening than the mask is the concealed face,
which is often revealed in the climactic conflict (and sometimes in the prelude)- the
‘face shot’ that audiences expect. The Friday the 13 th series is no exception with the
mask never able to impart the ultimate horror of what lies beneath.” (2010; 180)
[parenthesis in the original] Through this method, Friday the 13 th Part III 3-D retains
the shock value of not revealing the concealed face until the climax.
This sequence is also designed to be set distinctly apart from the rest of the
film. Friday the 13 th Part III 3-D, being the film’s original theatrical release title,
hinges the film’s aesthetic on a 3-D visual design. The sequence applied from
Friday the 13 th Part 2, while cropped to fit the 2.35:1 aspect ratio from its original
1.85:1 aspect, is not adjusted to 3-D, retaining 2-D cinematography. The 3-D
dramatically stands out against this as the opening titles “Friday the 13 th ” comes out
of Mrs. Voorhees’s eye socket toward the viewer on the left of the screen, “Part III”
comes out of the socket at the right of the screen.
The characters directly identified in the sequence are Ginny, Jason and Mrs.
Voorhees who is referred to as “Mother”. This is the pivotal point of the viewer’s
perspective and relationship to Friday the 13 th Part III 3-D. The franchise viewer has
a defined understanding of who these characters are and their relationship to one