In addition to the usual reviews and comments you would find on a horror movie blog, this is also a document of the wonderfully vast horror movie section of the video store I worked at in my youth.

Friday, December 28, 2018

Auld Lang Zzzzzzz


To usher in 2019, I watched my VHS of Norman J. Warren's 1987 holiday horror Bloody New Year.


When a group of teens get stranded on a island, they realize they may not be alone.

Yeah, there's no way around it, Bloody New Year was a fucking dud. I was expecting a run-of-the-mill slasher in the vein of New's Year Evil, but this movie had more in common with The Shining or Evil Dead, with one-thousandth the entertainment value.


Perhaps the paramount issue was that this movie made no fucking sense. It's like the trio of writers – really, it took three of you to come up with this? – all had separate ideas and couldn't decide which one to go with so they haphazardly shoe-horned in each one. I'm all for keeping the viewer confounded, but it has to eventually go somewhere interesting. This did not.

Additionally, Bloody New Year actually took place in July, so its connection to the holiday was dubious at best. At a few points there was mention of a crashed experimental plane caused the ensuing shenanigans, but this random sci-fi element didn't explain the lion's share of what went on.

You look just like I feel.


















I really can't overstate how muddled this movie was, as it had weird creatures, zombies, ghosts and even one scene where one couple were chased by “laughter”. I shit you not. It also didn't help that the characters were mainly a bunch of insipid idiots that I couldn't wait to get offed.


Bloody New Year was frankly, a chore to get through. I was looking through Warrren's other movies and it seems I may have picked the wrong title, as Prey, Horror Planet and Spaced Out all sound like more appealing watches than this boring yule log.

No comments: