New Year's Evil (1980) — Triskaidekafiles

NEW YEAR’S EVIL

WRITER: Screenplay by Leonard Neubauer
Story by Leonard Neubauer and Emmett Alston

DIRECTOR: Emmett Alston

STARRING: Roz Kelly as Diane Sullivan

Kip Niven as Richard Sullivan

Chris Wallace as Lt. Clayton

Grant Cramer as Derek Sullivan

QUICK CUT: A rock and roll call in show rings in the new year.

THE MORGUE

Diane/Blaze: A kinda sorta MTV VJ who hosts a call in rock music promotion show. She’s flashy, she’s motivated in her career, a real go getter.

Derek - Diane’s neglected son, trying to find his own way under her shadow.

Evil - The villain of the piece, who wants to get Diane’s attention with his victim.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Happy new year, Triskelions! Or as you can tell from that image right there, happy new year's EVIL. Yep, been meaning to do this one for ages, but I always forget or think of Bloody New Year, which I already did. And after whatever that disaster of a December was, I need something that is HOPEFULLY more of a real movie. I mean, almost anything has to be more of a real movie than Slaughter Claus. So let’s see how this goes.

We open up on Diane, or "Blaze" as she's known, as she is getting ready for American Gladiators...no wait, this is more like American Bandstand. She's a bit of a VJ, who is hosting a live New Year's Eve concert, and I'm sure everything will be fine.

She calls her manager to find out where her husband is, and he's in Palm Springs, high as a kite. This annoys Diane, but the show must go on.

Yvonne takes some time getting ready to meet Diane on set. However, she won't be making it to the show herself, because our killer grabs her from the shower, where they were somehow lurking.

Stabbing in the shower should make for easy cleanup.

Diane's son shows up, and gives his mom the good news that he won a role on an upcoming show. But she's too wrapped up in her own world to even realise what he's talking about, and he is very upset as she heads off to the stage.

She sets up the show, answers a few calls, and then one caller comes on the line, with a voice distorter. And before he can ask "Blaze" what her favourite scary movie is, he insists she call him "Eeeeeville".

And to add the icing to the cake, he threatens to commit murder at midnight, a threat he will carry out.

Blaze plays it cool and hangs up, throwing to the first band of the evening (But oh, not the last). Then Diane tells the producer that she wants more cops, because she's freaked out by Evil.

We see Evil sneak into a sanitarium, and it's an interesting tactic to not hide who he is at all from the audience. I mean, they hide WHO he is, but we see him very clearly throughout most of the movie, or at worst with some dodgy disguises.

Evil quickly gets changed into an orderly uniform, and runs into a nurse, whom he flirts with heavily. Flirts with her all the way to her death.

As midnight approaches, Evil switches the radio he's been carrying around, so it records the screams of the nurse as he kills her. So, he's seen Branded.

With his work done, he calls back to Blaze so he can report in, and plays for her the recording of the screams. It's got a good beat, but not sure you can dance to it.

Meanwhile, her son is dealing with his neglect very well, as he pulls some red stockings over his head, and tears up a bouquet of flowers. Yeah, he's fine.

Evil continues his spree, and starts stalking his next victim, for midnight in the Central time zone.

Unfortunately, the girl he targets wants to take her friend along for safety, and a lot of little things going wrong start to add up. Evil is on a clock, and he does NOT take kindly to people fucking up the timetable.

They pull over to make a pit stop, and he gets the friend out of the car, just in time so he can get down to business. He uses a bag of weed as a means of choking out the one girl.

Once the friend comes out of the convenience store to try and find the others, she ends up being dragged into a dumpster and murdered as well.

While the cops find the two women, Evil is busily stalking his next prey. You get the idea by now. The movie is a bit of a one trick pony for much of its middle.

Evil has been dressing up in disguises to do his dirty work, and for his 11PM appointment, he's done himself up like a priest. His mere presence annoys a biker gang, and he ducks into a drive in to wait for them to pass, screwing up his timetable again.

Unfortunately, the bikers don't just drive past, and cause a little mischief in the drive in, while innocent bystanders are watching Blood Feast. Hmm. Not sure where that ones falls in the “don’t remind me of a better movie” rule.

While they find his car, Evil has ducked off to try and find his next victim, and after stabbing one of the bikers off the clock, he steals a car with a girl inside it.

Unfortunately for Evil, but fortunately for the girl, a couple of drunks wander into the road, and Evil slams on the brakes. The girl bolts like a rabbit, and Evil chases her into the woods.

It's actually a decent tense scene, as he gets closer to her hiding spot, saved only by the cops showing up, and making Evil run off.

With Evil thwarted and the final hour coming around, the cops get ready at the studio, expecting Evil to show up there for his final act. And rightly so.

The building seems locked down pretty well, but Evil sneaks in by stealing a cop's uniform. Meanwhile, Diane checks on her son, and gets changed for the finale.

A masked figure sneaks out on Blaze with a knife, and we're made to think it's Evil, but OH WHEW it's just her husband, Richard! He and her son played an elaborate prank on her, saying he was coked out of his mind, so he could surprise her!

Oh, and Richard is actually also Evil. Double twist!

Richard Evil rigs up the elevator, because I guess he knows how to do that, while the cops piece everything together, and realise the killer is calling from inside the building.

When Diane and a cop get in the elevator, Richard takes control of it, and makes it plummet at a slightly faster speed, so everyone gets jostled. Once it reaches the bottom floor, he drags the cop off, and takes Diane hostage.

Richard reveals himself, and his motives for doing all this, and it boils down to "You neglected me and our son". Yeah, cool motive, still murder.

Putting the chain in “my old ball and chain”.

Dick Evil chains Blaze to the underside of the elevator, and sends her on a ride that will send her all the way up, and come crashing down to smoosh her underneath. While she's hanging around, the cops show up for a shoot out.

The killer takes a few shots and then runs away, going for the stairs. See, if you weren't playing games, you'd have an elevator RIGHT there.

But anyways, Richard runs ALL the way to the roof, and once the cops have him cornered, he takes a step off the ledge and hopes he can learn to fly before he finds the ground.

His son takes his Stan Laurel mask, and gets behind the wheel of the ambulance his mum is being wheeled into, and drives off into the credits.

Waiting for the Richard to drop on New Year’s Eve.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks really good, for what it is. Everything is clear, looks sharp, and nothing gets lost in the dark, which this movie delves into occasionally.

Audio: Good, and the voice modulation has a suitably unsettling tone to it.

Sound Bite: “You castrated me, and that is not! nice!”

Body Count: I feel like we skimped a bit here, but they’re nicely paced to keep the plot rolling.

1 - About three and a half minutes in, Yvonne gets stabbed in the shower

2 - Nurse Jane gets stabbied by the new resident

3 - One girl gets choked with the plastic bag.

4 - Another is dragged to her fate in the dumpster

5 - Killer stabs a biker dude.

6 - Richard jumps to his death

Best Corpse: We don’t SEE a lot of the violence here, so Nurse Jane gets the nod. Good way to kick things off.

Blood Type - C: There’s some blood, but just enough to get the point across.

Drink Up! every time Evil makes a phone call.

Movie Review: I am gonna be grading this on a major curve, because no matter what, it’s leaps and bounds ahead of the last few movies. Oh, glorious day. But even then, it’s a well made flick, with a coherent storyline, and if I have one big complaint, it’s that it just breezes by, and is padded by a few too many musical acts. But it has a vision, and it does what it does well enough. Decent acting, some tense moments, and even if they play it safe and don’t outright show the kills, they’re interesting enough. Three out of five roses.

Entertainment Value: It’s a ridiculous concept, and almost the last of it’s kind, focusing on this sort of bygone day of a call in musical countdown show. I feel like the motivations and plot drag things down a bit, but there’s a lot of interesting pieces to hold your attention, in at least a way that makes you want to see where all this is going. The reveal is handled well, and I actually dig the campy voice changing, it adds just that little detail that gives it a little something unique. Four out of five priest costumes.

As you can tell, this movie kinda breezes by, and it's padded out a bit with musical acts, but it does what it does