Jay Burleson’s The Third Saturday in October double feature

Cody suggests a slasher double feature directed by Jay.

This Saturday will mark the third Saturday in this particular October, and fans of the college footballs teams the Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama and the Volunteers of the University of Tennessee will be spending the day watching their favorite team clash with their biggest rival. It’s an annual tradition that goes back nearly one hundred years. This year, horror fans – especially fans of the slasher sub-genre – have the opportunity to start their own annual tradition by watching blog contributor Jay Burleson’s slasher throwback double feature, The Third Saturday in October and The Third Saturday in October Part V. If you decide to watch the sequel first, that works just as well – in fact, it’s recommended!

If skipping sequels and watching movies in reverse order sounds confusing, here’s an explanation of what this double feature is: 

What if a lost horror franchise made during the peak of the slasher genre was unearthed today, but only two of the films could be restored? Filmmaker Jay Burleson imagined just that with The Third Saturday in October.

A double feature of terror, The Third Saturday in October: Part V sees unstoppable killer Jakkariah Harding once again stalking and butchering the football-loving residents of a small Alabama town, this time finding a treasure trove of victims after he chances upon a football watch party. And then get ready to see how the horror began in The Third Saturday in October: Part I, which tells the story of Harding’s death row escape and ensuing slaughter as two survivors of his initial attack hunt him down.

Aiming to recreate the by-gone video store days when horror fans might have had to watch a franchise out of order, the filmmakers intended for viewers to start with Part V and then go back to Part 1.

Twice the scares, twice the laughs, and a world-building start of a franchise that’s as outlandishly clever in its deception as every gore set piece it throws on screen, The Third Saturday in October films are a red-blooded American slice of southern gothic infused with a deliciously twisted sense of humor.

Here’s the fake history the filmmakers put together for the franchise: 

The long lost slasher franchise The Third Saturday in October is back! Red Corpses LLC and Sleep Creature LLC are proud to announce they have partnered with Dark Sky Films to restore and release two entries in the long running slasher saga.

The series began in 1979 as a quick cash-in on John Carpenter’s Halloween. Series producer Frank Crafts, an Alabama native, believed he had a great idea for a horror film with Southern roots – what if Halloween were set in the South, and instead of a traditional holiday, it centered around a Southern institution: college football. Thus, The Third Saturday in October was born, a small-town slasher film revolving around a group of friends watching an annual football match between the Alabama-Mobile Seahawks and the Tennessee A&M Commonwealth. Unfortunately for them, an unstoppable killer named Jakkariah Harding shows up to murder them one by one.

The original film garnered little national attention but birthed multiple low-rent sequels throughout the 1980s before the franchise flamed out when the trashy fourth installment ran the series completely off the rails. Borrowing a page from the Halloween playbook, Crafts doubled down and attempted to resurrect the saga with an unrelated spin-off in 1990, but the series returned to the Jakkariah Harding storyline in 1994, utilizing a comedic approach to hopefully win back its audience. The series officially ended in 2000 with Part VI: The Last Third Saturday in October, but the series ultimately fell victim to what producer Ian Cunningham refers to as “The Third Saturday Curse”, as the films slowly vanished off the face of the earth after a series of unfortunate events, including internal feuding, bankruptcy, a warehouse fire, and cheap VHS manufacturing leading to unplayable tapes.

With the assistance of Dark Sky Films, the creators of the saga have unearthed two of their lost films: the original offering from 1979, and the 1994 sequel The Third Saturday in October: Part V.

As mentioned, the idea of watching the movies in reverse order is a nod to the fact that many horror fans didn’t see the major franchises in chronological order. For example, Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI was the first Friday the 13th movie I ever experienced, and when Jay was a kid he had a VHS tape that had Halloween 4 recorded onto it, followed by the original Halloween.

Jay wrote and directed both The Third Saturday in October and The Third Saturday in October Part V, and worked with producers Frank Crafts, Ian J. Cunningham, and (on Part I) Lauren Musgrove to bring them to the screen. He also assembled great casts that include Kansas Bowling (Christmas Bloody Christmas), Poppy Cunningham (The Death of Dick Long), Taylor Smith (Angels on Earth: The Light of Faith), Bart Hyatt (The Nobodies), Autumnn Jaide (Deathless), Tom Hagale (Dormant), and Parker Love Bowling (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), as well as Darius Willis (Benched), K.J. Baker (The Starling Girl), Allison Shrum (Ozark), Lew Temple (The Devil’s Rejects), Antonio Woodruff (He Got Away), Casey Aud (Love Incidental), Kate Edmonds (Root Letter), and Veanna Black (Single Drunk Female).

Dark Sky Films gave the movies a VOD and digital release back in May (Part I is on Amazon HERE, and Part V is HERE), and they’ve since made their way onto the Tubi streaming service in some territories. There was also a DVD release in Australia, and pre-orders of a limited run VHS release can be made through the official website.

I find both of these movies to be a blast to watch, and if you’re a fan of slashers from the ‘70s through the ‘90s, I think you’ll have fun watching them as well.