“It’s been a really bad year for me.” – Richard Sullivan, New Year’s Evil

a Primal Root Review

New Year’s Eve! That oh-so special night when we all come together to celebrate the passing of another year of set backs, horrible crimes against humanity and affronts to moral decency as we fill our bellies and blood streams with excessive amounts of alcohol in the hopes we can some how kill away the pain we feel in losing a portion of ourselves to such a godawful twelve months of our lives. That is, before we wake up New Year’s Day and roll out of our crusty, cold, puddle of puke from the night before, pluck the used condom from out of our assholes, we hope, that maybe…just maybe…, to quote The Counting Craws, this year will be better than the last.

You think of the multitude of traditions associated with this yearly world wide party and all the festive goings on and one wonders how an early 80’s slasher film could go so wrong with using this year end hedonistic smorgasbord go wrong? Well, the makes of New Year’s Evil has found a way!

It’s New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles and the supposedly “sexy” host of a rock n’ roll call in show called Hollywood Hotline, Diane “Blaze” Sullivan (Roz Kelly), who looks like a Christian soccer Mom got accosted by Hot Topic,   is hosting an all night television New Year’s party where they are celebrating new year’s in every time code. But one caller tells her to call him “Evil” and that he is going to kill someone at every stroke of midnight. Blaze ignores her troubled actor son and focuses on her live telecast responsibilities while trying to get the local police to do their jobs and halt Evil before he kills someone close to her, as he has threatened. This will not be so easy, as the killer is a MASTER OF DISGUISE! Implementing fake mustaches and priest outfits that do very little to change his appearance at all!

As the corpses begin to mount, the cops deduce that Evil is killing one person every hour from 9 to midnight. Will the police be able to track down the killer before the final stroke of midnight and Blaze get snuffed out and is there any hope that they can make this movie the least bit exciting or entertaining?

Okay, New Year’s Evil is one of the greatest letdowns I’ve ever forced myself to sit through. Where does one even begin? The movie is all over the damn place, and not in a good way. It feels like the filmmakers were scrambling to find ANYTHING interesting to thrill us with but are constantly coming up short. There is absolutely no gore to speak of, literally, non. Zip. Nada. Not only that, but there is hardly any nudity to seduce us with. Listen, if you hardly have a story and don’t have a budget for any kind of gore effects in your mother fucking SLASHER movie, at least throw us a bone and feature some nekkid flesh, because watching shitty bands play terrible music in between people talking on the phone, exchanging clunky, passionless dialog, and literally just waiting for something to happen does not an fun, entertaining, or so-bad-it’s-good piece of Trash Cinema make.

Kip Niven as Richard Sullivan who we know is Evil from the very beginning does his very best with the material he is given, with varying results. It goes from being dull as a dog turn to unintentionally comical, but he never quite settles on a tone. Grant Cramer as Blaze and Richard’s ignore son and struggling actor is actually pretty fun to watch, although his screen time adds up to about five minutes. One scene that stands out is when he takes some pills, dons a red stocking over his head and begins angrily pulling rose buds off a bouquet he gave his mother.  It’s nothing really special, but in this snooze fest, it actually passes as mildly intriguing. Then there’s Roz Kelly as Blaze, who might be the most poorly cast and most ill equipped actor in the film. The whole films rest squarely on her shoulders, it is her’s to carry and she simply is not up to the challenge. She is supposed to be energetic, down and dirty and fun to be around! She dresses the part but comes off as tired, bewildered and completely out of place during her New Year’s Eve call in television party.

Really, there’s not much to recommend…the scenes meander along and go from one to the other out of duty but you never once sense any kind of passion of the project. You get the vibe that everyone involved is sort of just going through the motions to collect a pay check. There’s no fun to be had, it’s an utterly toothless, literally bloodless feature length film that has nothing to offer even the most easy to please fright fan.

Okay, well, there is kind of one thing I enjoyed. When it’s “Revealed” that Richard is Evil and he explains his motives to Blaze it’s pretty damn funny. He hates that his wife is so busy and doing so well and flirts with other men and ignores her son. I mean, was a divorce out of the question? He HAD to kill several people who had nothing to do with his shitty marriage? “You’ve castrated me and that is not nice.” Richard explains, like the loser he is. Because his wife is successful and he and their son feel left behind, there just had to be a killing spree… “Women are manipulative and deceitful and immoral and very very selfish” And this is coming from a guy who just killed a half dozen people while is disguise and lying to them simply because he doesn’t like his marital situation.  Not only is this moment a nice little peek into a dark and slimy world of late 70’s misogyny, but a reminder that these kind of guys are still very much a part of the fabric of our loves, just like cotton, here in modern day America. Only they typically resent women for playing leads in remakes of Ghostbusters and are pissed that women are badass Jedi’s now in their Star Wars sequels.

Also, there is one line of darkly brilliant comedy dialog when Richard chains Blaze to the bottom of an elevator, “Enjoy your farewell party tonight. Get smashed!” BWAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, that was good. If only the ENTIRE movie could have been this witty or darkly comical.

Okay, Richard’s Laurel (of Laurel and Hardy) mask is kind of creepy…

In all honesty, this might be the most boring slasher film ever produced. How fucking sad is that? I think I will commence to getting shit faced now. I cannot wait till New Year’s Eve after watching New Year’s Evil…

ONE 1/2 out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets.

Stay Trashy!

-Root