Friday the 13th, Part 3: 3-D Paperback – Box set, August 1, 1982

While this book is by no means high art, it is an excellent read for fans of the series. As someone who has watched all of the movies countless times, it's fun to have something new to consume. Some novelizations are VERY different from the movie, as they are based off of early drafts of the script, unfortunately this one is pretty much a direct copy of what you see in the film. However it does have a just enough plot points that didn't make it to the film to keep it interesting for a true fan.

This novelization is based on an early draft of the script and features a number of striking differences from the final film. Most notable is the ending, which I won't spoil here, but would have changed the course of the Friday the 13th series forever. The author's purple prose is reminiscent of the EC horror comics from the 50s and holds up quite nicely today. It's very politically incorrect, but with this series, that's part of the charm. I've seen this movie a thousand times and this book managed to take the story and give me fresh chills.

This book was poorly written, and doesn't follow the character profile of Jason. The book has Jason laughing several times as he kills. I never saw or heard Jason make any sound, other than grunts. The only good thing about this book is it uses the alternate ending, which when you read it makes no sense, but it was still cool to read.

Friday the 13th Part 3 is definitely my favorite of the first half of the Jason Voorhees saga. When he was still human, alive and kicking, and fueled by retarded hillbilly mentality he launched his attacked on Higgins' Haven in 3 gory dimensions. I have actually seen the 3D version in the cinema and I assure you it's brilliant. The film itself feels like horror and more like a light-hearted action/adventure film in the woods with Jason doing the honors. For once the characters were actually likeable and were friendly to each other rather than taking the easy, everyone-is-a-bastard route to justify killing them off. The 3D photography meant we got a Jason movie in 2.35:1 for the first time, which also required tremendous amounts of lighting, so, visually, the film looked very different from all the others. I believe it was also the first Friday the 13th to be novelized, the chore falling to long-time pulp extraordinaire Michael Avallone.I'm not exactly sure if Avallone was entirely briefed on the nature of Jason Voorhees, which, at the time of writing, had only been established in 2 movies. The legacy and cult following had yet to come, but Avallone makes a few misjudgements (Jason laughing? Really???) but keeps the story moving very quickly, and it's never once boring. Friday the 13th Part 3 is also the only film in the series in which none of the characters actually say the name Jason. Avallone seems to get this to begin with but undoes that suspense after the halfway mark by bringing Jason's point-of-view into the narrative. I guess he got tired of constantly referring to him as 'the big, hulking shadow'.As with most novelizations this one came from the shooting script (or the draft immediately previous to it) and features Jason with a standard white mask (the hockey mask was improvised on-set) and the very different alternate ending that fans have been raving about for 30 years. It doesn't really make sense, but it was interesting to read it. In the movie the character of Debbie reads an issue of Fangoria (with a Tom Savini article mentioned on the cover - a nice little in-joke) but here she reads some old pulp novel called 'The Beast with the Red Hands' by Sidney Stuart. I wasn't sure if this book actually existed, but it does, and Sidney Stuart just happens to be a pseudonym for Michael Avallone - another little in-joke.As to be expected with pulp, there are a couple of errors here and there but it's still a far better novel in overall quality than those tawdry 2004 series of Jason novels from Black Flame. Friday the 13th Part 3 was  novelized AGAIN  a few years later by Simon Hawke (who also novelized Jason Lives, and then the first 2 movies - but, strangely, not The Final Chapter) so true fans might want to check out both and compare them. Both ought to be reprinted as I am sure they would sell enough to justify it.

Michael Avallone has done a pretty good job with this novelization of the movie. Although there are some sequences here that are different from the movie, it is still a good reading. A group of unsuspecting teens decide to spend a weekend at a summer cottage on Crystal Lake. Little do they know that a killer awaits. One by one, they fall into his vengeful, bloodthirsty hands until only one of the teens is left. Alone in the cabin with no one to help, will she survive the night of terror? Although not quite as good as the Simon Hawke version, this novel is still a very good effort. Complete with stills from the movie, it's guaranteed to give you a chill.