BloodyNewYear

Bloody New Year (1987)

Ladies and Gentlemen I’ve been bamboozled. I’ve had the wool pulled over my eyes, been fooled by a system most foul. See I went thru NetFlix and picked out all the movies out of the Slasher and Serial Killers category that I hadn’t seen yet. I even read the synopsis for the movie, which sounded like a bloody good time. But after all of this research I was shocked to realize partway thru Bloody New Year that this is in fact not a slasher movie at all!

What we have here is a strange little science fiction movie that tries to explain things away with talk of time warps and experimental radar equipment. Basically the entire island somehow exists out of time and the “teens” have some how become trapped on the island. So basically the story plays out like this. The characters wander around a Fun Fair, get into a fight over a girl and make their escape in a slow speed chase. Then they go sailing, immediately hit a rock, and wander around an island. Here they find a mysterious looking hotel that is decorated for Christmas and has shall we say a quaint air about it. Strange things start to happen so they all make the logical choice of splitting up! The creeps from the Fun Fair show up in time to get killed by the “ghosts” who are trapped in the time warp (which apparently makes everyone evil and stuff). Then the “teens” get picked off one at a time until the movie is over.

You can probably already tell I’m not a big fan of the movie. The story spends way too much time with long shots of the actors wandering around, whether it is at the fair or the island. Then when the story starts to play out it makes very little sense. Has no one ever noticed the island right off shore before? Also the motivations of those trapped on the island isn’t ever give and we are left to just figure that being trapped in a time vortex pisses you off and makes you evil. After being killed or injured some of the characters get possessed, but not all. What is up with that? When you are making the “rules” for your horror movie you need to stick with them. To sum it up Bloody New Year is boring and confusing.

Lets talk some technical stuff next. The movie is shot very well and looks great. Some of the special effects are cheesy, but kind of fun. You get a couple of characters that “zombie” out and they look cool. The gunshot in the movie is sort of lame, but then I dig the one arm being lopped off. Also I though the bit in the elevator with the wall, while very simple, was creepy and a nice gag. So mostly I’d say the special effects work well and are kind of fun. There are a few attempts at jump scares that are ruined by the terrible over the top musical score and cues. I’ve never seen a movie give away all of it’s jump scares with the score before, but Bloody New Year does.

So instead of a Friday the 13th want to be what we have here is an Evil Dead want to be. Complete with a cast trying to fight off the evil spirits that want to kill and possess them. It doesn’t work and I can’t really recommend Bloody New Year.

1 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer