The Unused Part 3 Ending More Preferred
I have never liked the dream sequence ending for Friday the 13th Part 3. It has never made any sense to me why the filmmakers decided to have a previously decapitated Mrs. Voorhees attack Chris in her dream with a reattached head. The ending of the 1980 film was effective and made complete sense within the context of the film. The Mrs. Voorhees lake scene at the end of Part 3 did not fit into the context of the film whatsoever.
It has been written about in the past, and I strongly agree, that the originally conceived ending would have not only made more sense, but would have been more effective for the jump scare the producers were looking for. Now, the decapitation of Chris in her original dream may not have played out the way filmmakers would have liked, but that seems to be more of a logistical problem with the special effects rather than the end result the scene would have produced with the audience.
It has been said that the scene was never shot, but there are contact sheets that exist of the scene. If contact sheets exist then film negatives must have existed at some point and that means there must have been film of this scene. Larry Zerner even mentioned that he was present during the filming of the scene. I say give me the intended ending of the film and let me decide which is the better scare for Chris Higgins.
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The ending they used made no sense and they didn’t try to make it logical, they basically just tried to copy the ending of the first movie. Part 3 is, along with 7, my least favourite of the original Paramount films. It has a camp charm but it’s not very good filmmaking, even by Friday the 13th standards. The Final Chapter more than made up for it, though.
I agree, Christian. Although, I like Part 3 for its audience particpation vibe, it is a little overrated in the overall scheme of the franchise. Now I know a lot of people like this film and hold it as their favorite, and I have no problems with that, but Steve Miner and company still tried to go to the well too many times using the 1980 film as their template.
And yes, The Final Chapter is far and away the best of the franchise, in my opinion.
To be fair I don’t mind the original ending so much. I saw it as a kid (when I was obviously too young to watch it) and all I remember is it scaring the hell out of me. My nostalgia blinds me in that respect but I must say that the filmed/unfilmed ending with Christie getting it through the business end of a machete with a clear shot of the Stan Winston mask of Jason sounds to awesome to pass up. I’ll take that ending over the one we got any day.
I couldnt agree with You more Jasonsfury. I hate the ending to part 3, always have. Everytime I watch part 3 with a friend, the’re like WTF is that…I thought Jasons Mom got Her head chopped off. But its not the only chapter to be robbed of a good ending for instance:
Part 4: Trish finds Her Moms body in a dream sequance
Part 6: We finally get to meet Jasons Dad Elias
Part 7: Jason jumps out of the lake and grabs a fisherman out of a boat (kind of like the jump scare in part 1)
And I think Part 8 and Jason X needs a new ending because the endings were lame.
I believe Larry Zerner, He seems to know and remember alot about part 3 that the others forgot. Well besides Richard Brooker, He has a good memory.
Oh and I almost forgot, I wasnt too crazy about how Jason got “killed” in the remake. However theres a deleted scene where as Hes getting pulled into the wood chipper, the chain breaks His neck kind of like in Jason Lives almost.
But anyway, I would love to get ahold of the alternate ending to 3. I first heard about it years ago, and I just could not believe they chose the ending they went with instead of the beheading. Oh well, freakin Paramount what can You do?
Hell yeah! The theatrical ending to part 3 blew. Totally lame. I would have much more preferred the Chris decapitation. What’s the problem? Is it because Jason’s face was the Stan Winston design and they wanted it to look more like the mongoloid Jason from part 1? Was there really a special effect rpblem? Anyway, yeah, the ending they used with mama voorhees jumping out of the lake made no sense in any shape or form. The decapitation would have registered better, leaving an impression on audiences because she was the final girl, they’re supposed to live. That ending was breaking the mould. Would have been very effective. It makes me wonder, where’s the bloody axe wound on his forehead? How did Chris dispatch of Jason if they had used that ending?
I think the last fifteen minutes of part 3 is pure gold… but I agree putting Pam in there suddenly doesn’t really fit anything in the film, there was no mention of Mrs. Voorhees, no folklorish foreshadowing like in some of the other films, these kids were probably the most oblivious teens since part 1. I think part 3 is the only film in which the name “Jason” is never uttered. The reattached head thing is no big deal when you consider it was a dream… or maybe a ghost. I wouldn’t change the scene where he’s in the window with the head gash dripping down, hissing at Chris, scared the hell out of me as a kid.
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I’ve got to be the voice of dissent here. The Mrs. Voorhees lake sequence is my single favorite moment of the entire Friday The 13th saga. But I’m basing that on my point of reference from when I first saw it on the big screen in 1982 (I was twelve). At that point there hadn’t yet been the further sequels that established Jason permanently in his hockey mask.
Even at that time, I was aware that Chris and the others at Higgins Haven didn’t seem to know about Jason Voorhees or his mother, and even Chris was oblivious to the identity of her two-years-prior attacker in the woods. So the appearance of Mrs. Voorhees in the lake, mirroring the ending of Part 1, suggested to me that the very waters of Crystal Lake had some kind of supernatural connection to the Voorhees family.
Obviously, since that angle was never explored in further sequels, the scene is now regarded as a “dream sequence,” and one that doesn’t make much sense for reasons stated in above posts. But if we had to play “flag the inconsistency!” with the entire series, we’d have a rather large and curdled salad on our plates. For me, bottom line is the Mrs. Voorhees lake ending would work best if Part III had been the series finale. It wasn’t, so we’ll just have to regard it as an interesting idea that sadly went nowhere. Although the sequence also sports Harry Manfredini’s single best musical cue in the series.
One of the posters above mentioned exactly what I was thinking. The “dream sequence” ending makes no sense at all because Chris has no knowledge of the existence of Mrs. Voorhees (if she does, it’s not depicted in the film). I think I would have preferred the alternate (just as I would have preferred the alternate mask discovery scene in the reboot).
So they obviously did shoot this scene. It didn’t fit with the rest of the film though. Jason looks different from the barn windows scene, he doesn’t have the battle damage. I wonder how much of this movie was rewritten? in the original script did the axe blow never occur?
I get what you guys are talking about but it was just that, a dream!! She just killed another human and saw her friends dead, even tho she has no head doesnt mean that she wont have dreams/nightmares off her with it still attached!! I mean it was on when Mrs V tried too kill her!!
Petch, I dig your explanation, and have theorized about it myself… the lake itself is sort of cursed by vengeful evil, like Mrs. Voorhees and Jason himself still haunt it– part 1 was the same thing, Jason’s lake up is one of the greatest moments in horror history, let alone the franchise, yet it was passed off as a dream, nothing more, which of course, makes no sense because Jason is supposedly a living, grown man out in the woods… so who was in the lake?
of course the writers were intentionally ambiguous, and both sequences were designed simply to shock audiences. But the pan over crystal lake at the end of part 1, or of the Higgins Haven swampy area and the barn at the end of part 3 seem to suggest more… this place, the lake, is cursed. The evil is never really gone.
Cat, Mrs. V never attacked chris, she was dead for two films by then.
Petch and Jasonlives, I love where you’re going with that. I’ve always believed the Crystal Lake campsite has something terribly wrong with it. Jason is its deadliest occupant, but I’m perfectly willing to believe there are other manifestations of its “death curse,” including “echoes” of Pamela while her head was intact or Jason when he was still a child.
That said, I don’t think it would have drastically changed my opinion of the film either way if they’d gone with Chris hallucinating decapitation by Jason instead of drowning by Pamela.