New Year's Evil

Has anyone ever considered 1980's NEW YEAR'S EVIL scary? Can't imagine.  The film is so low energy that it never seems to be a goal.  "Laid back" and "horror" do not prove to be good bedmates.  Nonetheless, this, one of several holiday themed slashers of its day, tries to jolt us out of our chairs with its story of a sickie whose goal is to kill someone at the stroke of midnight across U.S. time zones on New Year's Eve.  Not content with the acts themselves, he tape records the murders and plays them during phone calls he makes to a live music/dance party call-in show on television.  He distorts his voice with some kind of modulator.  How it sounds is but one of the many belly laughs this film offers.

There's also that weird convenience store clerk, who delivers his lines suggesting he's either very nervous or constipated.  Or the increasingly odd behavior of Derek (Grant Cramer), son of the host of said TV show,  Diane (Roz Kelly), culminating with his adornment of her red pantyhose over his head.  He's pissed because mom is too busy to acknowledge that he just won the lead on some new TV series, and that his father is stumbling around drunk somewhere in Palm Springs. Meanwhile, the killer (Kip Niven) begins his ghastly mission across Los Angeles, for some reason donning different disguises for each murder.  At one point, he picks up a rather ditzy blonde in a bar, luring her with the understandably tantalizing offer to join him for a party at Erik Estrada's house!

The kills in NEW YEAR'S EVIL are not particularly gory or imaginative.  In fact, the discoveries of the corpses are more disturbing.  Director Emmett Alston (who also shares story credit with screenwriter Leonard Neubauer) was either unwilling or unable to milk any suspense or dread.  Things just sorta happen.  He also doesn't create any palpable atmosphere, even in early '80s L.A.  And the script is quite lazy, especially when we learn what motivates the killer - unresolved mommy issues and general misogyny.  Again.  The ideas introduced are somewhat interesting; it seems an entire other movie exploring psychosexual elements could come from this material.  If, say, Nicolas Roeg had been inclined to do a low budget throwaway.

Perhaps if Ms. Kelly just played Pinky Tuscadero here again, the film would've been more amusing.

So we're left with another crappy, tasteless killer on the loose programmer best left on in the background.  It is an excellent contender for Bad Movie Night.  I haven't even mentioned the music.  Let's leave it that way.