New Year's Evil (1980)

User Rating:

3.6/10   

Director:

Emmett Alston

Writers:

Emmett Alston (story)
Leonard Neubauer (screenplay)

Release Date:

December 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

A celebration of the macabre.

Plot:

During a New Year's Eve celebration, a punk-rock singer gets a phone call saying that when New Year's strikes in each time zone, someone will be murdered--and she will be the last one.

Plot Keywords:

New Year's Eve | Music | Murder | Nightclub | Suffocation

Cast

Roz Kelly	...	Diane Sullivan
Kip Niven	...	Richard Sullivan
Chris Wallace	...	Lt. Clayton
Grant Cramer	...	Derek Sullivan
Louisa Moritz	...	Sally
Jed Mills	...	Ernie
Taaffe O'Connell	...	Jane
Jon Greene	...	Sgt. Greene
Teri Copley	...	Teenage Girl
Anita Crane	...	Lisa
Jeannie Anderson	...	Nurse Robbie
Alicia Dhanifu	...	Yvonne
Wendy-Sue Rosloff	...	Makeup Girl
John London	...	Floor Manager
John Alderman	...	Dr. Reed

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (TVC)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | New Zealand:R18 | Australia:R | UK:18 | USA:R (certificate number not listed)

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: At one point the killer hits a cop over the head and takes his uniform. Despite the cop being quite a bit heavier, the uniform fits perfectly.

Movie Connections:

Edited into 42nd Street Forever Part 4 (2009) (V)

Soundtrack:

Temper Tantrum

Slightly better than average slasher flick

After "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" sliced and diced their way to box office success, a mess of low-budget horror/slasher pictures came out. Some of these movies included "Mother's Day", "Graduation Day", "My Bloody Valentine", and "Prom Night". "New Year's Evil" was another. Most of these movies are pretty bad. But to my surprise "New Year's Evil" wasn't one of them. This is at times a pretty entertaining horror movie. But it's obviously predictable. "New Year's Evil" has an intriguing premise. A killer threatens a disc jockey who's hosting a nationally televised New Year's Eve show. He warns her that he will commit murder at midnight in each of the four U.S. time zones. For example, when the clock strikes midnight in the Eastern Time Zone, he'll be killing someone. Same thing goes for the Central Time Zone. And so on and so on, with the disc jockey being targeted as the final victim in the Pacific Time Zone. This interesting story line helps to make "New Year's Evil" much better than it should be. It's pretty scary at times, and I was pretty much into the film. But you know darn well what's going to happen to various people in the film (especially if you've seen "Halloween" or "Friday the 13th"). Nevertheless, "New Year's Evil" is amazingly one of the better "Halloween"/"Friday the 13th" clones. At least it's a better holiday slasher movie than "Silent Night, Deadly Night".

**1/2 (out of four)