A demented killer stalks and threatens a DJ
during her New Year's Eve countdown celebration. HORROR
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New Year's Evil (1980)Directed by Emmett Alston
Written by Leonard Neubauer Starring Roz Kelly, Kip Niven, Grant Cramer, Chris Wallace, Louisa Moritz, Anita Crane |
New Year's Eve is a fairly untapped well for holiday horror. New Year's Evil is the most obvious, so I figured why not do it on the podcast as our farewell to 2022. Regrettably, the movie doesn't go nearly as hard with its concept as I expected. It's actually quite tame. Considering this was the same year as holiday slasher Friday the 13th and over-the-top slasher Maniac, my expectations were high. New Year's Evil is relatively bloodless and doesn't show us many of the murders. Plus, our killer looks like a dentist. No mask, no signature weapon. Just a dude with a grudge playing out an elaborate "fuck you" to his wife.
It's New Year's Eve, and rocking DJ Blaze (Kelly) is hosting a bitchin' celebration called New Year's Evil, complete with two d-list bands. It's also a call-in show taking requests, which doesn't make sense if they've already got a band. Anyway, Blaze gets a phone call from some creep saying he's going to kill someone every time the clock strikes midnight in every time zone. The final victim will be Blaze herself. We spend most of the movie following the killer as he carries out these murders, and most of them are more funny than anything else. The one where he smacks on a porno stache and picks up two blondes who he finds very irritating is pretty damn funny. We later found out the killer is Richard (Niven), Blaze's husband, and this whole thing is because she's a neglectful mother to their adult son and she flirts with other men. Sure, Richard is crazy, but the motivation could've been stronger. I get why New Year's Evil has its loyal fans. The film's title song performed by Shadow is a banger. So, props for that. I just felt the film was too tame, awfully slow, and more goofy than scary. It's on the low end of the 80s slasher spectrum for me. Hopefully, we get more horror flicks set around New Year's, because right now, this is pretty much it. |