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.
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| 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.
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