By the late 1980s, the slasher had lost most of its box office drawing power. Outside of the major slasher franchises – which were digging into their later sequels – most slashers were dropping straight onto video store shelves. For every April Fool’s Day or Maniac Cop, the subgenre produced a few Cheerleader Camp’s, Nail Gun Massacre’s, and American Gothic’s. Most of the major calendar holidays had been used up – Thanksgiving would take a few more decades to get its own slasher. Even New Year’s Eve had New Year’s Evil. None of this stopped Wales-produced supernatural slasher Bloody New Year from showing up on VHS – with one of the better sleeve covers for horror in the decade.
Synopsis
When a trio of hooligans disrupt their fun day at a summer carnival, a group of teens decide to take the party out on the ocean with a sailboat ride. Their boat runs aground, taking on water, and forcing the group to swim ashore to a remote island that seems to be uninhabited. Looking for some shelter they find a hotel that seems to be up and running. But something immediately feels wrong – only a handful of staff, no guests, and a lobby decorated for New Year’s Eve … in July.
Bloody New Year a Cheap-Looking Straight-to-Video 80s Horror Movie
Maybe it’s not surprising, but Bloody New Year is a low-budget, cheesy supernatural slasher in the same tradition as Slaughter High. Director Norman J. Warren was known for schlock horror outings like Terror and Inseminoid. Whether Warren intended Bloody New Year to be an intentionally silly romp or a straight-faced effort is kind of hard to figure out. Tonally, this supernatural slasher bounces around a bit. While its opening taps into the same feel of an 80s teen sex romp it quickly jumps to oddball horror that’s mostly laughable. Yet there’s also the occasional midnight movie vibe – it doesn’t make this one unsettling or creepy, just weird. At just over 90 minutes, Warren doesn’t allow his movie to get boring, though it likely goes on 10 or 15 minutes too long.
By and large, the DIY special effects don’t look all that special. The zombified characters look like they’re wearing cheap latex and face paint.
Everything about Bloody New Year is super cheap looking. No one in the cast is remotely recognizable. Fortunately, no one is terrible – what you get is largely wooden performances from actors who look way too old to be partying teens. By and large, the DIY special effects don’t look all that special. The zombified characters look like they’re wearing cheap latex and face paint. One monster that comes up from a table looks like a collection of garbage bags. However, Warren occasionally puts something on the screen that’s actually kind of impressive for the low budget. For instance, an elevator wall slowly swallowing one character actually comes off quite well. If more of Bloody New Year followed on that example, it might have been more watchable.
Bloody New Year Throws a Batch of Zany Ideas at the Wall … And Lets Everything Stick
Despite all the things that are subpar about Bloody New Year, there are some occasionally interesting ideas that pop up here and there. Screenwriter Frazer Pearce’s basic premise about an island caught in a time paradox doomed to repeated the same night isn’t a bad idea. In fact, it’s the kind of high-concept premise that has recently reinvigorated the slasher with movies like Happy Death Day, Totally Killer, and Freaky. The problem is that Pearce either didn’t have much confidence in the idea or didn’t realize he had something good. Instead, Bloody New Year throws a dog’s breakfast of ideas at the wally – and let everything stick.
…there are some occasionally interesting ideas that pop up here and there.
Not satisfied with having ghosts from distant New Year’s Eve haunt our teens, Bloody New Year feels like a zany parade of whatever ideas crossed Warren and Pearce’s minds. Hotel and WWII pilot ghosts, invisible ghosts, zombies, walls that swallow people, a killer net, and some sort of table monster. Even the carnival hooligans turn up again for no other reason than to up the body count. Eventually Bloody New Year feels like a plotless mess. Sometimes the random weirdness feels fun. Most of the time it just feels like a random mess.
Bloody New Year Not Likely To Find Its Way Into Many New Year’s Movie Marathons
Not unlike Slaughter High, Bloody New Year is a cheap-o, low-budget trashy horror movie. It’s also poorly executed, laced with terrible special effects, flat performances, and running time that feels bloated at just over 90 minutes. But for a cheap supernatural slasher movie released in 1987 there’s some good ideas rolling around here. An island trapped in some kind of time paradox doesn’t sound too different from Lost. There’s also an occasional cool shot or midnight movie vibe. Whereas Slaughter High knew it was a stupid movie, Bloody New Year never consistently commits to just being a fun, bad movie. It’s just a bad movie.