I think the only one I ever saw in theaters was Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, and both that and Friday the 13th III 3D have both only ever been released on video in the same red/blue format. I know we did get Jaws 3 3D in polarized 3D blu-ray, and Parasite 3D is forthcoming from Kino.
80s 3D movies were an effort to reinvigorate moviegoing during the lean years of the early 80s recession. None of them were particularly great, but because of the format being used, it was inexpensive to implement.To be fair, 80s 3D movies were awfully rare - 3D never caught on as a mainstream format back then - so it's not real an apples/apples comparison.
3D was really just a gimmick for bad movies in the 80s!
No. No. A thousand times no, as previously stated.
There were multiple over/under formats being used: Arrivision, Optimax III, Space-Vision, Marks 3-Depix.... The exhibition format was largely universal, but the lens layouts for the cameras varied from setup to setup, resulting in some weird artefacts from time to time. Arrivision had weird colour anomalies in the optics, and Optimax III used a strange layout for its lenses, with the lower lens mount almost looking like an outrigger, which would result in flat shadows, since the parallax was different from the upper half not only vertically, but horizontally. Check out Comin' At Ya in some of its darker moments. The picture below should explain:
Friday the 13th Part 3 was Marks 3-Depix, an over/under format. but has only been released on Blu-ray in anaglyph 3D. There was a field sequential master that was used for VHD in Japan and possibly for a field sequential release in North America [Sensio maybe?]. Other recent anaglyphic theatrical releases were Spy Kids 3D: Game Over and The Adventures of Shark-Boy and Lava Girl, since released in MVC codec as a double feature Blu-ray.
I think the main reason 3D finally "stuck" in the 21st century is because actual good movies used it, not just cheap schlock.
Even though some of the 50s 3Ders are pretty good movies, they're still outweighed by schlock, and that's definitely the case with the 80s flicks.
IMO!
There is a combination of factors figuring into the longevity of 3D in the 21st, not the least of which was the will of the studios to push digital projection and delivery of films. While implementing digital projection was a massive cost, once it paid for itself [courtesy of surcharges for digital 3D], shipping costs were profoundly reduced for the studios, since what was previously sent to theatres as a fragile, heavy 35mm print could now be delivered as a DCP on a hard drive. The studios were able to sell to exhibitors that they would be able to generate greater income with 3D and reduce costs by going digital. Think about it: less moving parts in a digital projector means less maintenance and less maintenance costs, and no need for union projectionists to assemble prints for platter systems and run most of the screenings. Also, interlocked screenings [the "old" way of running a single print on multiple screens, which can be fairly complicated] would be replaced by simply uploading the DCP to a central video server and play it on as many screens as you need. Good movies in 3D is simply a byproduct of the bigger picture. It's a lot easier to sell a film in 3D that can be played on practically every screen on a multiplex vs., say, The Hateful Eight and Dunkirk, for which mothballed 70mm projectors had to be pulled out of retirement for "event" screenings, and even then Tarantino and Nolan had to restrict those screenings to a handful of locations and deliver a DCP for the other theatres.
There are several on this list that HARDLY qualify as "shlock"
