NEW YEAR'S EVIL {1980}

 "THE APPLE" WITH KNIVES! 

This is one of those movies you wish you could give 2 separate ratings:  one star because it's absolutely awful -- and 5 stars because it's absolutely bonkers in its awfulness.  I know everybody takes either one or the other tack; so bad it's awesome or embarrassingly atrocious.  But I held no preconceptions.  Then I saw the Cannon logo slide across the screen and I thought . . . . "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh".  And NEW YEAR'S EVIL is exactly what a Cannon film should be.  It's absolutely incoherent.  It pictures the "younger generation" exactly how middle-age men 'think' they are -- a la "THE APPLE -- which they absolutely are not.  It's just laughable.  A hoot from start to finish.  So does that make it a 5 star movie entertainment-wise?!?!?!  

Pinky Tuscadero . . . oops I mean Roz Kelly plays Blaze who I guess is a well-known DJ?  She's not a rock star.  But she's crammed into a plastic pink dress and rouge that looks like it was applied with a paint roller.  She is hosting a live New Year's Eve sorta concert/telethon call-in show (because yeah, THAT'S a thing) in which absolutely lame rock bands perform in what is apparently a Holiday Inn while people call in to a line-up of telethon phones ON STAGE (because yeah THAT'S a thing too) and vote for the year's best 'new wave' songs.  The band onstage launches into I guess the movie's theme song -- it sounds like it's called 'New Year's Evil' -- which is pretty metal-lite.  The NEXT song these 'new wave punkers' perform is a slow blues number.  Because that's exactly what a make-up-wearing new wave/punk band WOULD play.  At a New Year's concert.  In front of a rowdy, drunk and drugged up audience.  That basically sways around NOT in time with the music.  And that live music is at such a low volume that you can hear the crowd's feet shuffle on the floor.  Because THAT'S how quiet a New Year's Eve concert normally is. 

And this is all just the set-up which makes no sense.  Next we have the wonderful idea of a nutty serial killer (calling himself 'Evil') calling up live to the show and telling Blaze that, as each time zone reaches midnight, he will kill someone.  Oh yeah, before I forget, I also wanted to mention that the movie upholds the tiresome cliche of having the (only) black character die first.  Is there any real need to worry about spoilers with this movie??? 

OK, spoiler.  The ex-Mr. Linda Lavin . . . . oops I mean Kip Niven . . . is the killer who is bumping off chickies at every bong of the midnight hour.  Roz Kelly is, I'm afraid, not much of an actress but Kip Niven is actually rather excellent.  And the genuinely best/most surprising moment in the movie involves Kip Niven and a dumpster.  But I digress.  We have Kip as 'Evil" calling in to talk to Blaze while using a Peter Frampton voice box and playing her 'Realistic' cassette tapes of the actual murders.  The guy's got style, anyways.  Then there's Blaze's son Derel (17 year old Grant Cramer) who appears to be veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery emotionally disturbed (and at first you assume HE'S the killer in the movie).  Even after you know he's not doing the moiders, you still wonder about the kid who sniffs and rips apart his mother's red (pink???) fishnet stockings with a knife and then stretching it over his head.  Gotta love that kid!  This is all just a tenth of the wackiness on display in this movie.  I mean, we even get Kip Niven at one point gluing a cheezy 70's porn mustache on his lip and at another point dressing up like a priest!  I mean, the movie is so ridiculously bonkers, how can you not have a soft spot for it? 

Leading man the late Kip Niven says in an interview in the special features something that perhaps best describes the film and my feelings towards it -- so I think I'll let him have the last word:   "I have great affection for this movie; for NEW YEAR'S EVIL.  It's hard to take it very seriously.  It's hardly Shakespeare.  It's a long way away from CITIZEN KANE.  But it's got a sense of humour about it. . . . . Understanding, going in, that I was not going to be in one of the great movies ever made.  But it's a fun movie and it's an entertaining movie."