The Third Saturday in October Part V and Part I (Movie Review)

It’s not that often that a horror movie (or in this case, two horror movies) manages to be a complete out-of-nowhere surprise, but somehow Jay Burleson has done the seeming impossible in making two new movies, filmed back-to-back and released simultaneously, that masquerade as long lost entries in a forgotten slasher series; one the gritty, post-Halloween original installment and the other a goofy, mid-90s fourth sequel, complete with all the period signifiers and tropes of the eras in which they were made. Oh, and they’re also firmly rooted to a location and, in classic slasher form, a holiday of sorts - in this case, rural Alabama on the date of a college football rivalry game, which feels more authentic and lived-in than a lot of the Midwest-by-way-of-LA settings of the slasher movies that are being aped. Full disclosure, this movie was particularly surreal for me because it’s filmed and set in the part of rural Alabama I grew up in and my tiny hometown of 3,000 people even gets a shout out as a football player’s hometown. At any time I was fully prepared for a distant relative or somebody I went to elementary school with to pop up in one of the roles.

In all honestly, I went into these with a certain amount of dread. I instinctively recoil at the mention of “slasher throwbacks” and attempts to make modern day grindhouse movies, because more often than not, these movies tend to be little more than parodies that constantly wink at the audience to make sure it’s clear that they’re in on the joke and if the movie is ever stupid or bad or lazy, it’s on purpose. It’s pointless fetishism at best and cowardly filmmaking at worst. These movies don’t wink. Like their source material, they’re sometimes silly, but never parodies. There are no knowing post-Scream jokes about horror tropes, no hacky references to now-obsolete technology that was cutting edge at the time. These movies feel remarkably like genuine lost relics and it seems very possible that they would pass a Pepsi Challenge where someone unaware of the backstory could watch these and fully believe that they are real deal forgotten low-budget horror movies. Maybe the only tell is that they thankfully don't get so deep into authenticity that they dip into the problematic territory of casual racism, sexism, or homophobia that tend to be a signifier of these type of movies from these time periods. (Part I does have an oblique reference to the sundowner reputation of a certain town that is insanely hyperspecific and won't register at all for most non-North Alabamians, but blew my dang mind since I graduated from high school in that town.)

So what are these movies actually about? In Part V (which was filmed first and is the recommended movie to start with), the skull-masked, hearse-driving serial killer Jakkariah “Jack” Harding has returned and resumed his annual murder spree on the date of the college football rivalry game between the Alabama-Mobile Sea Hawks and the Tennessee A&M Commonwealth (any resemblance between this matchup of two fictional universities and the actual college football rivalry game that Alabama and Tennessee have traditionally played on the third Saturday in October since the 1920s is strictly coincidental). As with many a late-franchise sequel, that’s about the extent of the plot. Gathered to watch the game and be terrorized by Jack are some teens and wacky characters (shout out to Bart Hyatt for doing a weirdly accurate take on Franklin from the Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and there’s a catfish and kitten obsessed little girl named PJ in the Danielle Harris role, who presumable will (did?) go on play a bigger role in the later sequels. The kills also have to be way over the top to eclipse the previous four movies, so in this one someone gets killed with a slice of pizza.

Part I fills in a lot of the backstory and plotting that had been dropped by the time of Part V. We find out that Jack Harding was a convicted serial killer who somehow survived his execution to resume his carnage. There’s a Loomis character in Ricky Dean Logan, the parent of one of Jack’s victims who knows that Jack somehow survived being shot twice with buckshot, even if the police tell him he must have mistakenly used birdshot. We find out why Jack drives a hearse. We see him get his iconic mask near the end of the film. We also learn that the entire series appears to have some inexplicable throughline about kitty cats.

Maybe the biggest question after watching these is what comes next. The filmmakers have already indicated that they want to continue the franchise, but how? A sequel to the first one or a sequl to part V? Maybe they’ll get a large enough budget to make the mid-2000s Platinum Dunes remake. Maybe Jack Harding had a crossover movie where he tangled with the killer from some other slasher franchise we've never seen. Or things could go full circle and we'll see the modern day legacy sequel with cast members from Part 1 in old age makeup. These movies feel like they’re capable of becoming a bona fide mini phenomenon amongst die-hard horror fans and I can’t wait to see what weird roads they go down next.