The Third Saturday in October Part V

Charmed by the sincere tribute to Grindhouse cinema with the Horror comedy The Third Saturday in October (2022-also reviewed), I was happy to find that the other film in the series was being shown at the Soho Horror Film Festival, this led to me counting down to the third Saturday.

View on the film:

Recorded as the fifth in a series where parts 2-4 don't actually exist, returning editor/writer/director Jay Burleson & cinematographer Chris Hilleke slam the franchise into the pre- Scream (1996) early mid-90's, which they wonderfully capture in flat, plainly lit for video, wide-shots, limited sides of Slasher set-pieces, and extended takes for attempts at Comedy sequences, which stumble on the dead-end that the Slasher had hit by this point.

Along with emulating the visual state of Slasher flicks from this period, the screenplay by Burleson sadly strays a little too close to the writing style of this era, with the playful riffs on Grindhouse from the earlier movie, being replaced here with plodding, witless dialogue tangled up in a Slasher series which had overstayed its welcome by the third Saturday in October.

For Third Saturday in October part V

"Don't know that I've ever experienced a better homage to classic 80's slashers than when I watched Third Saturday part V. I was instantly transported back to the video store days of my youth. Bowling and Cunningham's on screen chemistry carries the movie full steam ahead, supported aptly by the Hilarious Bart Hyatt, Taylor Smith, and Robert Hill. Burleson's insistence on starting the franchise with Part V isn't marketing...it's pure genius"

For Third Saturday in October-

For a movie with a micro budget like this one, I was totally unprepared for my great experience..check out my review ...

If youre the one controlling the playspeed at the theater. Somewhere between 1.25-1.5 ffwd youll get a real crimson southern redneck horror comedy to chew on...

its a low budget film about a reoccuring beast that returns every 3rd saturday of october, turning heaven into hell for all them screamers out there. The story and plot is unlike the others the very same, youre doomed to blood and gore anyway and how...

its time era is the early 1990's, the art and dressing department along with the makeup and stage units have done a decent job and reflects very well life 30 years ago.

They even hit the bells of the comedy central too, had a good laugh herenthere. But its not a state of the art a-level horror, rather b or c level when pickinbg the individual parts out of it. But alltogether at high speed it works therefore a small recommend from the grumpy old man.

Logged on and couldn't believe this thing had 100% positive... then I realized that's because it only has 5 votes, lol. That tracks. I saw this and it's prequel being really pushed by Bloody Disgusting this October for some reason. My guess is that someone on the staff is related to these folks, because this movie is ROUGH. I'm sure it is intended as some sort of parody, but it doesn't feel nearly clever enough to pull it off. It just feels like a bad, low budget effort. Not so bad it's good, just so bad it's... mid?

I also feel bad for several of these actors. The little girl in particular, because you can tell that they are new to acting, which is fine (everyone has to start somewhere), but they also aren't being given much direction, so it feels like they are just tasked with filling in their own dialogue for much of their scenes, and the result is extreme unnatural awkwardness. The little girl has nonsensical, overly long bits where she's basically making small talk with cats (or a picture of a cat in one part) but was given no instructions on what to say, so she's just rambling on to fill time, like "i like catfish, do you like catfish? You are a cat... do you like fish? Maybe you are also a fish? Are you a catfish?", or asking a picture of a cat if it's "hungry" and "about ready for dinner?"... then just meowing repeatedly after she runs out of things to say to it. She (and the babysitter) are also obviously instructed to dance to music in several scenes, but it's clear they hadn't locked down the music selection yet, so they are dancing to a completely different beat, and/or just awkwardly making fists and unnaturally jerking them in the air to simulate "dancing", ala Elaine from Sinefeld, lol

The special effects are also rouuuuugh. So far (i'm only like 30 minutes in) i've seen a very bad, photoshop style cartoonish animated "rip" as a head comes off, some off screen awkward kills, horrible dialogue like "make like a gravy train and get those greased wheels down the road and outta my face boy!" and an awkward guy in "gameface" makeup unenthusiastically walking out of the bedroom singing "do the commonwealth shuffle. The commonwealth shuffle. Come on yall, do the commonwealth shuffle" in a monotone, while his daughter responds (also in monotone) "stop being embarrassing".

And the killer, isn't ominous, and honestly doesn't even make sense. He just casually, almost lethargically drives from house to house, blandly walking in without any real purpose and killing people in the most unenthusiastic, color by numbers way, before shuffling off to repeat, He also seems to be immortal, which is demonstrated in the most uninteresting way. A guy points a gun at him and tells him to leave, then oddly, and unemotionally just shoots him anyway, the killer doesn't react, or even flinch, a really cheap after effects, subdued blood spray plays, the guy opens fire several more times, same cheap special effect, no reaction, then they both just sort of stand there looking at each other, presumably waiting to be cued on whatever the next line is lol, this isn't intentionally bad, despite what you've heard. This is just plain of middling bad.

Preparing for a big party, a group of friends gathers at a friend's house to celebrate the town's massive football rivalry game where they use the opportunity to score with their girlfriends, but when they find the festivities crashed by a supernatural killer must try to survive the night against the being.

This was a solid enough sequel if just a slight step down from the original. One of the bright spots here is the rather fun setup that introduces some workable storylines for this kind of film. With the introduction of the killer returning and appearing on the outskirts of town in a rampage that goes unnoticed until it's too late serving this well enough to start the film, the continuation of the town's obsession with the particular football game being played on that date and the build-up of the relationships at stake between the main group of friends present, these pieces all combine together to make the first half here quite fun. The few bits of the friends hanging out with each other and preparing for the game before the party show a genuine sense of friendship that's quite effective at building sympathy for them which plays into the finish quite nicely. That provides the basic grounding for the film to go through a solid series of stalking scenes with the killer's brutality coming to the forefront quite nicely. With the encounters following suit of the first film with a slew of brutal, hard-hitting sequences that are made all the better for being practical effects. This one manages to strike just as impactful an impression here with the encounters and confrontations here. Featuring the first ambush at the farmer's house, the later scenes stalking their parents, or later coming up to the house while everyone is unaware of him being there, this one starts off well enough while also setting up the rampage that takes place at the party where he starts taking out the group as they split off from the others at the party. These are usually fun enough and filled with enough action to make for a likable and wholly enjoyable time. There are some issues to be had with this one. The main drawback to the film is much the same as an issue ins the first one in that the killer is somewhat more comical than he should be which makes him less imposing than he should be. Once again missing the sense of motivation for the rampage that was found in part one, here the whole thing is taken up a notch by the constantly utilized inability of everyone to notice he's there with people looking at the scene he's left behind and failing to notice or react to the obvious unnatural look of the scenario causing them to fall victim. These features combine together to make this killer feel quite underwhelming which is somewhat disappointing, much like the low-budget nature of this one standing out which is pretty frequent throughout here despite not being overtly detrimental but still stands out enough to hold this back.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and Brief Nudity.