User Reviews

It's New Years' Eve, and D. J. Blaze Sullivan (Pinky Tuscadero, a.k.a. Actress Roz Kelly) is hosting a night long dance party / concert celebrating supposed "new wave" music. Somebody else is celebrating, but in their own macabre way: a dude named EEE-vil (Kip Niven, "Damnation Alley") is calling Blazes' show and following through on his threat to murder someone every time the clock strikes midnight in a time zone. The clueless cops can't do much to stop him, as he goes through one masquerade after another - pretending to be a doctor, a priest, a business agent - while in the act of slaughtering unfortunate women.

"New Year's Evil" was an early production for producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus and their Cannon Group company; written by Leonard Neubauer and directed by Emmett Alston, it's mostly good for the laughs it provides. "Evil" speaks through a voice modulator and it's a hoot when he calls Blaze, remaining deadly serious while his voice sounds so funny.

The movie has some fun bits, such as "Evil" having a surprise in store, inside a dumpster, for a young lady. Also, it's interesting the way the movie focuses so much on its killer, not bothering to obscure his face, and following him just as much as it follows the activities of Blaze. It's quite amusing when "Evil", while in his priest garb, incurs the wrath of some bikers and is forced to abandon his mode of transportation. Also entertaining are the hilarious extras in the dance sequences, busting some of the most lethargic and priceless dance moves one is ever likely to see. In fact, all the extras and bit players in this thing are worthy of chuckles. Adding a creepiness factor is Blazes' oddball son Derek (Grant Cramer, "Killer Klowns from Outer Space"). Co-starring are Chris Wallace ("Don't Answer the Phone!") as the not terribly efficient police detective, and lovely ladies Louisa Moritz ("The Last American Virgin") and Taaffe O'Connell ("Galaxy of Terror") as victims. Niven is a standout, giving his all to a killer with a thin, not very convincing motivation. Kelly's character is clearly not meant to be sympathetic, but it would help if she weren't so damn annoying in the role. The music is insidiously catchy, especially that title theme song which we get to hear a couple of times. The finale, however, falls short of being really satisfying, at least in terms of the killers' comeuppance.

Overall, this is a fairly underwhelming slasher, with limited gore and no nudity, but it is good for some entertainment value.

Six out of 10.

Very dull predictable slasher film mercilessly mocked on Elvira's show. That's the only way you get any entertainment out of it.

Soundtrack is far worse, like a Broadway producer's idea of punk or new wave. The supposed punks are a Broadway version of punks too, white kids with puffy blond Afros, trendy faux leather, and makeup intended to look slutty rather than shock.

Waste of time.

NEW YEAR'S EVIL is a low budget slasher of 1980, similar in part to TALK RADIO and PLAY MISTY FOR ME. Unlike either of those films, however, it's content to go through the motions without ever really exciting or innovating in its approach. A female disc jockey is harrassed by a prank caller who turns out to be a serial killer who takes a new victim every time it's New Year in a new time zone in the USA. The pace is slow and sedate, the characters thinly-written, the kills rather unimaginative, so there's little reason to tune in.

Call me evil, but this movie after a long anticipated wait trying to see it and I must say that this film came off as horrible instead of horror. New Year's Evil is another in a long line of slasher movies based around major holidays. New Year's Eve is on its way and a famous punk rock star will host television's late night countdown full of music and partying. Blaze AKA Diane Sullivan (Roz Kelly) host the party, and a number of local bands plays throughout the film at it. Most of them are pretty awful. The only one worth noting will probably be Shadow due to it's heavy soundtrack. The hard rock/punk soundtrack based around the theme song to the movie, get old after a while. All is going well until Diane receives a phone call from an odd sounding stranger claiming his name is Evil, who announces on live television that when the clock strikes twelve in each time zone, a 'Naughty Girl' will be punished (murdered),then the killer signs off with a threat claiming that Diane will be the last Naughty Girl to be punished. How on earth does a killer travel through every time zone in time while killing and avoiding police. It's near impossible. The killer known as Evil sounds like the dark side of Fozzie Bear.You would think that a voice changer would actually change the person's voice instead of forcing him to talk like Frank Oz. The acting is horrible no matter what. The studio crew takes safety measures and heightens security, but a number of victims are piling up. The film has some of the most unintentionally funny Slasher-movie kills, I've seen in a while. The killer has to be the luckiest killer to ever get the chance to kill people. The actor who's playing the killer, Kip Niven, thinks he's doing this big theatrical part, but he's too nerdy to pull it off. His body is tiny, and teeny and yet he can kill women larger than he is. He happens to be in the area where his target victims are and it gets worse: according to the movie, he didn't plan this. Yeah, he was planning to kill some people, but the manner in which he killed victims was completely thought-up on the spot. Something tells me the killer in this movie was part of an Improv Troupe at some point in his life. Every single killing seems likes it edited.There is a lot of logistics problems in the kills in this film. I smell lack of good writing here. The killer records his victims as he murders them and calls back the station each time playing the tapes back to prove he's serious. There are many suspects ranging from crazed fans to someone much closer to Diane, but the only feature the killer has is a mask. The Richard Nixon/Ed Sullivan mask is probably the scariest part of the whole movie. With a sort of 'Maniac' approach to the story, we know who the killer is all throughout the movie and follow his progress as he moves from victim to victim. The ending has a twist that I saw coming from a mile away, so I don't know what all this fuss is about eluding to some 'great twist ending.' The jump scare is just bad, it's literally cheap and laughable enough. The killer pointlessly posed the bodies (in ways that have nothing to do with New Year's Day or New Year's Eve, the whole theme of the movie). The results are as inept and artless as can be expected. Disappointingly, they are not inept in an entertaining manner. New Year's Evil ends up being one of the most lifeless, dull films that the Cannon Group ever produce. Watch it at your own risk. The fact that you're immune to higher-quality mediocre movies just means that you have a higher tolerance for bad movies now. Thank god a sequel wasn't made

By 1980, every holiday was taken. All writer and director Emmett Alston had left was New Year's Evil. It would have to do.

TV's most beloved punk, Diane "Blaze" Sullivan ("Pinky" Tuscadero from TV's Happy Days) is getting ready to count the night down from a Hollywood hotel. Things are great until Evil himself call, saying that in each timezone, he'll be killing a naughty girl, with Diane being the last to die.

In an insane asylum nearby, a nurse is the first victim, with the killer audiotaping each kill and replaying them. Who is he? A crazy fan? A religious nut? Her son? Her husband?

Whomever it is - I won't tell - he dies by jumping off the roof of the hotel. But as Diane is loaded into the ambulance, her son (Grant Cramer, Killer Klowns from Outer Space) is at the wheel, wearing the mask of the killer.

The big selling point of this movie for me? Fake 1980's punks. There is nothing like the Hollywood mainstream ideal of what punk rockers are like, because it is always far from the truth and always awesome.

This is fine, I guess. I wanted it to be something more, but maybe I demand too much from 1980's slashers. There are good ones out there. This isn't one of them.

New Year's Eve is looming and TV's most famous punk-rock lady icon Diane Sullivan is holding a countdown celebration of music and partying.

All is going well until Diane receives a phone call from a odd sounding stranger announcing on live Television that when New Year's strikes in each time zone, a 'Naughty Girl' will be murdered, and the killer leaves a threat saying she will be the one to die last.

The studio crew takes precautions and heighten security, but a nurse is found brutally butchered. Who could be behind these murders.....

At a time when slasher films were pretty new, and ten a penny, New Year's Evil falls into the very small sub genre of naming horror films after celebratory days. By this time, Christmas had all but been 'sleighed', and we all know what had happened with Halloween. So the makers took a 'stab' with this film. And it has an air of eighties slasher to it, as horror films made around this time had a very similar fell to it.

The cast are al fine, some are more kooky than others, the police portrayed are more two dimensional than matchstick men, and the final reveal isn't really a reveal, its more of a 'I told you so'.

But the films last fifteen minutes is brilliantly funny, and makes up fro all of its shortcomings.

It's not a very well remembered film, and its plain to see. But if you are a fan of eighties horror, this will fill a gap.

New Year's Evil is a dull and thoroughly unentertaining slasher. The premise doesn't sound too bad, even if a little contrived but it is on the whole a joyless and drab affair- it goes through the required mechanics of the plot with no sign of life or spark from any of the cast or in the writing or direction. There are about two quasi-effective scenes and one actor who shows a spark of life and that's it. Everything else is dull and or annoying.

The closest thing there is to a main character is Blaze (Roz Kelly) the host of Hollywood Countdown, who is the recipient of the phoned in threats from Evil, as the killer dubs himself. She isn't on screen all that much and comes across as far too boring and uncharismatic to be the host of a supposedly hip and popular music show (Though I actually think the same of many real life TV 'Personalities' so what do I know?) She is equally boring off-screen and Roz Kelly has all the acting chops of a potato. Also, without wanting to sound shallow or cruel, she seems far too old and unattractive to be hosting this kind of show- I guess maybe she is meant to be a long established TV personality but this doesn't wash either. Given the way she dresses and acts she seem more like she would be more at home hosting games of bingo than a music show that seems to aimed at the punk rocker set. The movie early on establishes the studio audience at this show being hard core punk types, all sneering, leather clad and knife wielding but the music they are so into, it sure ain't punk. More like bad eighties soft rock- the movie would have worked better following the premise of some angry and violent punk gangs hunting down and killing the purveyors of musical dreck after a misadvertised concert. The bad news is the movie is heavily padded out with scenes of the band playing and the audience dancing around like idiots in some sort of mosh pit. That they are so deliriously enthused about music this generic makes it seem all the more ludicrous.

The other slightly less painful half of the movie, follows the exploits of the killer as he selects and kills his victims. The killer, as played by Kip Niven, who is eventually revealed to be the husband of Blaze, actually gives a good performance. He is low key and creepy and his homicidally misogynistic tendencies are all the more believable for it. As is often the case with these movies he only gets hammy toward the end when he has to start ranting for his final victim to show how insane he is. Even so, watching him pick up his victims and kill them is rather dull. There is no discernible logic to the killings when he rantingly explains his reasons for the killings toward the end- something generic about being emasculated by the wife. He doesn't even follow the new year's eve time zone pattern he set for himself. He kills some woman working at the studio before it would midnight in any time zone and fails to kill anyone at another time. He is a pretty inconsistent killer, he goes to the bother of setting himself a gimmicky and elaborate modus operandi and doesn't stick to it and alternates between victims he has some connection to and random strangers. There is also a long and pointless sequence that is pure running time padding when he accidentally runs down a biker whilst in his car and spend ten minutes eluding them whilst trying to find another victim. If the makers were going for the ineffectual killer angle, as opposed to the more familiar unstoppable killing machine model, good for them but they could picked a less silly way to go about it.

There isn't a lot going for New Year's Evil. When Evil catches Blaze the method of dispatching her is at least original. He ties by the neck with wire to the bottom of the lift in the studio so that as the lift goes up and down the shaft she is jerked up and down but sadly she is rescued promptly and lives. Evil doesn't even warrant a decent death scene, merely throwing himself of the studio building when he is confronted by the police. None of the kills are memorable or inventive so gorehounds will be disappointed and there is only one even half way suspenseful sequence as Evil chases down one of his victims about two thirds in and that is being generous. There aren't even any memorable cheesy moments or dialogue, unless you count the lines utter by Evil over the phone via his electronic voice disguising gadget which makes him sound like the offspring of a union between Kermit the frog and Dr. Claw.

Everything about the movie is cheap, scuzzy and ugly. The music as mentioned is annoying, everything has that grimy early '80s look, which can sometimes be used to good effect but just makes this movie look ugly, all the fashion and clothes are ugly and dated (And not in a fun way) and even all the actors are homely. Maybe this was all done intentionally to give the movie a grittier, more realistic vibe but that seems pointless given how dumb and unrealistic most of the proceeding on screen actually are and if you're going to cast annoying ditzy females to be the slasher fodder in this kind of movies you might as well make them attractive.

Being made by Cannon films, under the eye of the infamous Golan and Globus, who brought us such gems as the Masters of the Universe movie, the Death Wish sequels and numerous Chuck Norris movies I would have hoped for something entertainingly cheesy but New Year's Evil is just bad.