102) New Year's Evil (1980)

"A crazy new year to you"

Director

Emmett Alston

Cast

Roz Kelly - Diane Sullivan

Kip Niven - Richard

Grant Kramer - Derek Sullivan

Chris Wallace - Lt. Clayton

Louisa Moritz - Sally

Though 2021 didn't seem as bad as 2020, I'm still starting 2022 off by saying "Craaaaaaaap!" and rubbing my temples. That's not a reflection on the movie I'm reviewing. It's just how I feel overall about 2021.  

I purposely skipped reviewing horror movies, even those that are set on or around Christmas, during December because I simply had other projects I wanted to focus on. I also wanted to make sure I had time to watch my customary non-horror holiday movies. And I did all of those things. 

Now to get this beast of a blog back up and running after a long winter's nap. I'm starting the new year off with a new year's slasher from 1980 called New Year's Evil.

I've seen this title pop up at random several times before either on horror movie sites, Facebook posts, or movie suggestions because I watched some other mindless flick.

In my mind New Year's Evil is just another horror movie with the novelty of a story that surrounds a holiday or event. Many of these types of films came out in the 1980s such as Bloody Birthday (1981), Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), April Fool's Day (1986), Trick or Treats (1982), Prom Night (1980), My Bloody Valentine (1981), and the Thanksgiving horror flick, Home Sweet Home (1983). Novelty horror movies like these are still made today. They scare audiences with the premise that their comfort and joy in celebrating can so easily turn into an unthinkable nightmare all because a maniacal killer ends up on the loose, or a grotesque monster starts terrorizing a town- a town that could easily be your town.  

New Year's Evil starts with a television pop rock celebrity Diane "Blaze" Sullivan (Roz Kelly) preparing for a televised late-night New Year's countdown inside a Hollywood hotel. Live punk bands will be performing, and networks from across the country are joining in through their own televised events.

People are calling in with requests and votes for their favorite bands. Operators are standing by.

As Diane hosts the countdown, she occasionally takes some of the calls. 

She receives a call from a strange sounding guy (Kip Niven) who refers to himself as "Evil." He says that's his name. Evil tells her he's going kill someone close to her. When he calls, he uses a voice modulator, and speaks monotonely. 

He follows through with his threat when he sneaks into a mental hospital, disguises himself as a doctor, macks on a nurse and offers her a little Champaign to ring in the new year. Things get steamy pretty fast. And when she least expects it...lights out! He tape-records the murder, and then calls the show back to talk to Diane and play the recording over the phone. Whenever the clock strikes midnight around the country, he'll kill a new victim. 

Evil ultimately threatens to kill Diane as she will be the last "naughty girl" to be "punished."

Hotel management and police try to implement safety measures, but you know how horror movies go when it comes to police protection.  

Meanwhile, Diane's son Derek (Grant Cramer) visits but feels ignored by his own mom as she quickly prepares for the show. This causes him to act in an odd manner. He's either sitting idle in his mom's hotel room talking to himself or wandering the hotel still talking to himself. 

As police increase security around the hotel, not permitting anyone to enter, someone close to Diane meets her up in her room. He tries to scare her while wearing a Stan Laurel mask but plays it off as a gag.

The suspense in the movie is like a translucent fog. It's there, but easy enough to see through. A taunting murderer on the loose is the same story seen in hundreds of other horror and thriller flicks, over and over again. The movie doesn't offer anything new. It's such a cookie cutter story.

Watching New Year's Evil is like watching an hour and a half long episode of some early crime drama series like Murder, She Wrote or Perry Mason, but without Perry and all the lawyer stuff. Only this movie has the breasts and blood to earn its R-rating.

To the movie's credit, Niven puts in energy to make his character intimidating despite how his voice sounds like Grover from Sesame Street when he uses the voice modulator. 

Not only is that part unintentionally hilarious, some of the scene set ups are, too. 

In one scene, Derek takes pills for reasons I'm not clear on. First I thought he was either attempting suicide, or taking anti-depressants.

Anyways, they're bright pink in color. In a close-up shot, we watch him pop two in his mouth and then take a gulp of water. When he he puts the glass down, we can see the pink pills still in his mouth. It's not a "blink, and you'll miss it" movie mistake. The camera stays on his face as he contemplates the trauma of being ignored by his mother, who actually hasn't ignored him at all. His mouth is open, and the pills are clearly on his tongue. 

In the final scene, Derek, wearing the killer's mask, sneaks into the ambulance his mother is in. The camera pans to the ambulance driver who's dead and bloody on the floor of the van. Outside, a group of bystanders are seen still standing along the sidewalk outside the hotel. Witnesses! Though they're standing right there, not one of them says anything nor tries to stop Derek. He literally committed this crime in front of all of them, and drives off with his mother in the back of the ambulance. No one says a word to all the police still at the hotel, or even follows him. Mistakes like these are completely lazy. But in one scene, he kills his victim with a bag of weed. Surely, the producers want audiences to laugh at that.

New Year's Evil is a product of its day in style and story-telling.

Roz Kelly in New Year's Evil.

I can't help but squint at its portrayal of bikers who randomly intimidate other drivers and flip people off as they ride down city streets. The same goes for punk rockers, dawning leather and metal spikes, dyed hair, treating each other like crap and preferring it that way. They also randomly intimidate others and flip people off at random. It's actually hilarious to watch them be as bad as bad can be. Bikers and punk rockers may have been intimidating to the general public back then. Did they really act like that, though? As far as this movie goes, their anti-social behavior is justification to kill them off. 

Though we see and follow the killer throughout the story, the twist comes when it's revealed who he is exactly, and what his motives are. The climax isn't far fetched. In fact, it's pretty clear who is before it's fully revealed. 

I stayed invested until the end just as I would watching a classic episode of a crime drama or reading a novelization of a movie. It's not necessarily boring. Rather, it's an underwhelming way to pass the time. Happy new year.