"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."
