Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday!! Today is dedicated to Friday The 13th Part III! Part III has always been one of my go-to horror films. It’s filled with memorable characters and epic kills. I’ve been wanting to do a post on this film for a while, and I finally got the motivation to do it. So, grab your hockey mask, beware of barns, and enjoy these fun pictures and bits of trivia!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com and IMDb.com)

(WARNING!! PICS CONTAIN GRAPHIC SPECIAL EFFECTS!!!)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• The lake, house, and barn were all built on location for the film. The man-made lake wasn’t sealed properly, so the water drained into the soil during the first week of filming.
• The original story was going to have Ginny (Amy Steel) from the second film being committed to a psychiatric hospital. She was suffering from the traumatic attacks from Jason, and Jason tracked her down to the hospital to finish the job, killing the staff and other patients along the way. There were a few different reasons why Amy Steel didn’t return to reprise her iconic role. One source says that she was busy with other projects at the time. Another says her agent at the time told her it would be a bad career move to do another Friday The 13th film. But Steel has since stated that she thinks she should’ve accepted.
• The film’s 3-D effects supervisor, Martin Jay Sadoff was responsible for Jason’s (Richard Brooker) iconic hockey mask. Sadoff was an avid hockey fan and he always kept a bag of hockey gear with him on set. When the filmmakers were testing out potential masks, Sadoff pulled out a Detroit Red Wings goalie mask. The film’s director, Steve Miner loved the look of the mask, so after some modifications were done to it, it was ultimately used for the film. To think: if they didn’t decide to make this film 3-D, Jason Voorhees probably would’ve had a different look altogether!

• One day, Larry Zerner was on the corner handing out fliers for a horror movie. The producers of this film approached him and asked him if he wanted to star in a horror film himself. That’s how he got the role of Shelly Finkelstein.
• To keep the plot of the film from leaking to the public, production used the fake title “Crystal Japan,” named after a David Bowie song. Since then, an on-again off-again tradition started where the Friday The 13th films would be titled after David Bowie songs during production.
• Steve Miner wanted a big man to play Jason Voorhees, and Richard Brooker, a former trapeze artist was cast. He was very tall, but not bulky enough for the role, so he wore foam padding under his clothes. Brooker also performed all of his own stunts in the film.

• In order to be closer to the Hollywood experts needed to help with the 3-D aspect, filming relocated from Connecticut to California. Steve Daskawicz, the actor who played Jason for most of Friday The 13th: Part 2, was told that if he wanted to reprise his role, he’d have to pay for his own airfare to California. He objected to this, so Richard Brooker was cast for the part.
• The book, Crystal Lake Memories stated that Chris’s (Dana Kimmell) previous trauma with Jason originally intended to imply a sexual assault. This was supposed to be the last film in the franchise and the writers wanted the fans to be pleased with Jason’s final demise. They felt that if they made Jason a rapist, then audiences wouldn’t want to see him return. They were also going to imply that he raped some of his previous victims before killing them. They eventually decided that this direction for the character would be too dark, so they canned that element.
• After this film, Tracie Savage (Debbie) quit acting and pursued a career in journalism. She became a reporter, and she continues to receive fan mail from Friday The 13th fans.

• When Debbie was lying in the hammock, flipping through a Fangoria magazine, she flips past an article about Tom Savini, who did the makeup and special effects in the first Friday The 13th film.
• Although the film was set in sunny and warm summer weather, they actually filmed in January/February winter. A lot of the night scenes had to be trimmed down in order to make sure the actors’ visible breath didn’t appear on screen.
• Since audiences had caught on to the franchise’s storytelling formula, filmmakers needed an advertising gimmick to pique interests, so they decided to go with the 3-D aspect.

• In the original script, Rick’s (Paul Kratka) name was Derek. They changed it to Rick because it was a one-syllable name, which made it easier to scream.
• In the original ending, Chris woke up in the canoe after surviving Jason’s attacks the previous night. She rowed back to shore and walked back to the house, completely exhausted. She heard a noise from the house and she thought it was Rick, so she ran to the front door. When she got to the door, it burst open and there was Jason waiting for her. He grabbed her by the hair and decapitated her with his machete, then she would wake up, indicating that this moment was just a nightmare.
• Decades after appearing in the film, Tracie Savage admitted that she was very uncomfortable shooting her nude scenes. She later joked that she now looks back in fondness because it reminded her how great her body used to be.

• In a deleted scene, as Chris and Rick were on their way back to the cabin, they had one last encounter with the crazed old man, Abel (David Wiley). Production stills of the scene still exist.
• According to Larry Zerner, the scene with Shelly, Vera (Catherine Parks), and the motorcycle gang happened quite differently. The gang was supposed to chase Shelly and Vera down the road on their bikes, and Shelly fired a corkscrew at them from a wine bottle he bought at the store, causing them to crash. The reason why the scene was changed is unknown.
• Two different masks were made for the film: the hero mask and the stunt mask. The hero mask was nailed to the film’s special effects artist, Marty Becker’s shop door and became lost to time. The stunt mask was later used as the hero mask in Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter and Friday The 13th Part V: A New Beginning.

• In 2005, the cabin used in this film was burned to the ground after a hard-core fan tried to light a fire in the fake fireplace.
• The biker gang’s leader, Ali (Nick Savage) is wearing a leather vest with a Black Widows biker gang insignia. This insignia can also be seen in the films Any Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can.
• Paul Kratka originally auditioned for the role of Andy. The filmmakers thought he’d make a better Rick, so he got that part and the role of Andy went to Jeffrey Rogers.

• David Katims (Chuck) had no problem expressing his disdain for this film. After attending a cast and crew screening of the film, he went to Steve Miner and the film’s producer, Frank Mancuso Jr. and blatantly called the final product crap. They responded by pointing out that it was a Friday The 13th film, and it was in 3-D, it was going to be a hit.
• In the film, Chris had a nightmare that Pamela Voorhees’ corpse (Marilyn Poucher) grabbed her and pulled her into the water. Since she never met Pamela and she had no idea who Jason was or what his background was, it’s unclear why she would have this nightmare.
• This was Gloria Charles’ (Fox) feature film debut.

• A lot of the death scenes had to be cut down in order to avoid an X rating from the MPAA. Andy’s death included his leg being cut off and his stomach being ripped open. Edna’s (Cheri Maugans) death had excessive blood flow. Chili’s (Rachel Howard) death showed steaming blood hitting the floor. Vera’s death had a lot of gore and looked too real. Debbie’s death showed blood running down her chest and splattering on her face.
• One alternate ending had Ali surviving in the end and after Chris hit Jason with the axe, they both escaped together. When police got there, of course, Jason’s body wasn’t there.
• Two different looks were created for Jason. Stan Winston created the original look that you can see in a few of these pictures. You can also see it in the beginning of the film when Jason was by the drying laundry.