The Third Saturday in October

"The Third Saturday in October" is one of those movies that just doesn't work. It has far too many characters, too many locations, too much dialogue. Too little focus. You forget what kind of movie it is supposed to be. It's like it remembers it's a slasher every half-an-hour or so and we get some pretty lame, unconvincing violence. Then it goes back to following its uninteresting, undifferentiated characters around and showing whatever it is they're doing, without ever giving us a reason to care.

The movie is an attempt to make a slasher that actually could have been made the year it's set, in the late '70s somehow. Therefore the footage looks washed out, like they left it in the sun too long. Everything looks yellow.

And of course the characters all wear '70s fashions, drive old cars, have oldschool hairdos, whatever.

I can imagine the conversation that ensued when this movie was pitched to the producers:

"We want to make an oldschool slasher flick that looks like it was actually made in the heyday of the slasher craze, like a lost movie from 1978."

"That's a great idea! Here's a bag of money."

"But.. don't you want to know about the ideas we have for a story?"

"No. You don't need a story, nor ideas. Just the concept of a lost movie from '78 will get slasher fans lining up to see it. In fact, I don't want you to use a story nor a screenplay. Just wing it with a lot of tedious scenes of characters the audience doesn't care about doing nothing of interest. We don't even really need violence so I'm not going to provide special effects guys. You'll have to just make that up on the spot."

"But... but..."

"Forget your buts. Here's some money. Shooting starts immediately. Now get out of my sight."

For Third Saturday in October

"For a movie with a micro budget like this one, I was totally unprepared for the visual extravaganza I was witness to with this film. I don't know that I've ever seen more authentic sets and locations with any slasher set in the past, and I have no idea how they were able to pull it off. Pay attention to the Halloween decorations: those are real period decorations from the 1960's & 1970's. The movie not only looks like it was set in the 70's it feels like it came out of the 70's. Shrum makes an amazing final girl, and Darius Willis and KJ Baker's on screen chemistry is magical. This movie is destined to become a Halloween Classic and I'd put Antonio Woodroof's Harding right up there beside Freddy, Jason, and Michael!"

This is a weird one to rate, because it's not really even a horror movie. As another reviewer noted - it seems like the script forgot it's a scary movie for LARGE chunks of time. The acting seems to be bad on purpose and certain lines are delivered very accurately to the style of movie it's recreating. But the writing is just bad and downright boring for large chunks of time. It's most just people talking in various locations.

The visuals however do honestly make the movie worth watching if you can find it and like to see a time period media be accurately recreated. I can't say enough good things about the sets and decorations and costumes. They nailed it! Especially for a low budget indie movie - they def put a ton of work into that aspect.

However just about everything else is lacking. The deaths aren't that gory, the comedy isn't funny, the characters aren't interesting, etc. So overall it's not great but if it's free on a streaming app and you wanna see the 70s intruder and camo slasher be retold pretty well - including all their shortcomings - this may be the meh flick for you.

I gave this movie two stars for trying. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to try. The movie does not deliver and scares.

The entire movie has a retro look -- like those grindhouse films from the 70's. In fact everything from the sets to the clothing, the cars...everything is 70's.

Additionally, they put some sort of grainy overlay on this to make it appear as if it was shot on film.

So they put effort in the movie, which has one huge fatal flaw -- the killer.

The guy can't act to save his life and isnt meanacing at all.

All of the death scenes fall flat because of him.

What a disappointment. After all that work, they couldnt have gotten a better killer?

This is too laughable for a pure horror movie, and too unfunny for a horror-comedy. I think that it's intentionally weird, plus don't take itself too serious, and that's not a bad thing. There is some entertainment value here. However, it didn't need to be so amateurish. I can't believe that the actors here are so bad at acting. They look like caricatures, they don't speak or behave like normal human beings. As it looks, that was deliberate, director wanted this to be a fun ride, a tribute to the 70's horror movies. However, it failed. Because, as i said, it's not scary neither funny or interesting.

If you want to watch a movie that nothing makes sense and people talk like they are aliens from outer space learning for the first time the human language, you might enjoy it. Maybe it is some kind of satire, but if you want to mock a genre, at least do it correctly.