Reviews

Friday the 13th Part 3 by Simon Hawke

itcamefromthepage's review

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fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Pretty basic by the numbers novelization, fun albeit it more useful during the age it was written. 

will_cherico's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

This might be the worst of the three of Hawke's novelizations that I've read so far. It really captures how formulaic and soulless the slasher genre can be, and takes a F13 film that already focuses way too much on an immediately dated visual gimmick (3D) and translates it to a book. There's no attempt at a setting - Hawke seems to expect that the reader will simply imagine Crystal Lake from the movies. That doesn't seem like a hugely egregious thing for a novelization of a movie, but it's been about three or four years since I last saw this film and I can safely say that this entire book took place in a blob of empty space. When the book is at its most boring, in which Jason picks off the teenagers scene after scene, it's impossible for any tension to be created because we have no idea of space and where people are. The ending, which is actually one of my favorites in the franchise, ends pretty lamely without even trying to include some sort of dynamic writing for the final girl's showdown with Jason. Shelley's even more of an incel in the book than the movie which isn't necessarily something I'm holding against the book since I don't think we're really supposed to root for him, but God is it hard to read the parts from his point of view.

idkmaclassiccars's review

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4.0

I got this book from a bin of my dad's old books from when he was a teenager and I must say, it's a very fun read. I haven't watched many of the Friday the 13th movies but slashers are my absolute favourite subgenre of horror and I was unsure of how they would translate to writing, But this is great! If you've got an hour to kill on a drive or are just a huge fan, I'd highly recommend(:

cyanide_latte's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Third verse, same as the second and the first! If you've kept up with my reviews then you know by now that I really enjoy seeing Simon Hawke tackle the novelizations of the Friday the 13th movies.  He especially made me love the character of Shelley by giving him a nice degree of sympathetic depth, and the same really goes for Fox! I'm also going through the Michael Avallone novelization of this movie, to compare and contrast. I went through this one first, (and if my understanding is correct, Hawke's version is based on the finished movie, where Avallone's adaptation was made off of an unfinished version/version of the original movie script,) and I think Hawke definitely made all the characters more likeable and their emotions more real.

And again, as with the first two books in the series, I wanna say a huge thank-you to The 80s Slasher Librarian on YouTube for making fan-recordings into free audiobooks on their channel so I could listen to them! These books are impossible to find in print unless you want to cough up a pretty penny, which I'm not keen on. I recommend their channel if you want to go through these novelizations for free, and support them if you're able!
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