Bloody New Year

"Bloody New Year" follows a group of young adults who wind up stranded on an island through unusual circumstances. They seek shelter in an abandoned hotel there, which after all doesn't seem quite abandoned; decorations from a New Year's Party abound, as does a Christmas tree-but it's summertime. Soon enough, they find themselves the target of horrors beyond belief.

This offbeat British slasher flick is actually more of a haunted house movie than it might appear; the film starts in a beachside amusement park, and the horrors the characters experience in the hotel after mirror the terrors of the carnival funhouse. The fun of the film is that danger lurks around every corner, and something utterly fantastical, lethal--or a combination of both--is lying in wait.

Where "Bloody New Year" falters is in its pacing and the way in which it deals out information. The middle section of the film is weighted down by a series of bizarre incidents and murders that defy logic, and these episodic scenes come one after the other without a shred of insight or explanation. By the time the film winds down to its conclusion and an explanation is offered, it's almost difficult to care. Despite this, there are some fun set pieces, hokey special effects, and a handful of well-crafted sequences that mirror elements of "The Shining."

Overall, "Bloody New Year" is really not the sum of its parts, but it's an amusing oddity by and large, whose main problem is that it alienates its audience for the majority of the runtime. The final reveal is ludicrous, but ludicrous in a way that seems to fit with the rest of the picture's modus operandi. A goofy, unconventional offering, but don't expect a straightforward slasher, because what you get is more "Scooby Doo" than "hack-and-slash." 6/10.

Horror fans who delight in the cheesy and the silly may find a fair bit to appreciate with Norman J. Warrens' "Bloody New Year". Don't go into it expecting anything resembling a coherent plot, but be prepared for a lot of insane nonsense.

The story has three young couples up to a whole bunch of tomfoolery at a carnival who afterwards find themselves shipwrecked on an island. This island features a hotel that not only is celebrating Christmas in July, it's celebrating Christmas circa 1959, and is eagerly anticipating 1960.

Among the assorted crackpot ideas Warren and screenwriter Frazer Pearce throw at the wall are snow indoors, invisible pursuers, a furiously moving camera seemingly inspired by "The Force" from "The Evil Dead", a "table monster", and lots of hilariously, endearingly tacky special effects. The good thing is that Warren and Pearce do seem to be just having fun with the genre because this whole production has a heavy tongue in cheek feel. Now, some people may find this simply *too* cheesy and *too* silly, but others should find themselves smiling if not laughing outright.

The first 15 minutes quickly establish the irreverent tone, and the filmmakers do achieve and maintain a certain loopy charm and a "Just what the hell is going on?" sensibility. The actors do an impressive job of keeping poker faces throughout, and they're all reasonably appealing, although there will undoubtedly be viewers who will get sick of all the screaming that Janet (Nikki Brooks) does. One of the best routines involves some appearing and disappearing sets of footprints.

These 90 minutes of off-the-wall antics don't quite fly by, but enough amusing stuff happens to help people pay attention. The music, by Nick Magnus and a duo dubbed "Cry No More", merely adds to the appeal. All things considered, this is an interesting effort among Warrens' filmography.

Six out of 10.

This final feature by UK schlockmeister Warren--apparently so unhappy an experience he didn't want to make any more--has an enjoyably daft, anything-goes approach to horror that would be more fun if the film were better made. Six youths visit a fun fair, then run afoul of some nasty carnies. (The highpoint of this is when they manage to shake off from a speeding vehicle the three carnies, each of whom magically falls onto a separate, conveniently located pile of empty cardboard boxes.) Then the youths are suddenly on a boat, which runs aground near an island occupied by an abandoned resort hotel that has apparently been frozen in time since 1960.

Of course, our protagonists are soon prey to terrors and death, but even basic binding fantasy logic is missing. There are ghosts, zombies, monsters, inanimate objects (appliances, a wooden carving, a snooker table, an elevator wall) that "come to life"...even those malevolent carnies return, though god only knows how they got here. It's a little like a low-budget "Shining"--except as arbitrary in its perils as something like "Hausu"--except with little filmmaking style or basic competence to make the nuttiness seem more inspired than just silly.

We've all seen worse, and the sheer randomness of the ideas provides a certain amount of entertainment value. Still, this falls short as both "so bad it's good" and the kind of movie that can actually pull off its deliberate senselessness with panache. It's a medium-hot mess that isn't exactly dull, and has the virtue of not being a formulaic slasher, but is just too sloppily put together to provide more than a few disbelieving yoks.

Anyone expecting Bloody New Year to be a cheesy slice of seasonal slasher fun will no doubt be sorely disappointed: despite having a title that conjures up images of a bloody Father Time slicing New Years revellers in half with his massive scythe, the film is, in fact, a supernatural horror that shamelessly rips off Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead whilst throwing in as much random nonsense that it possibly can.

After running into a spot of bother with some nasty fair-ground thugs, a group of teens set off in their sail boat, only to encounter more trouble when a collision with a rock forces them to abandon ship and swim to a nearby island. There, they discover a strange, seemingly abandoned hotel adorned with New Year decorations (despite it being mid-July), and encounter the restless spirits of the hotel's inhabitants, who have been trapped in limbo since 1959 thanks to a government experiment gone wrong.

This logic-free plot allows for a scatter-shot approach by director Norman J. Warren, who gives viewers everything from traditional transparent spooks to a possessed bird-shaped Newell post (!) in the process. Other bizarre occurrences include a murderous sheik emerging from an old black and white film, a killer fishing net, a monster that emerges from a table-top, walls that come alive, an indoor blizzard, and a collection of Evil Dead style zombies. As well as borrowing the look and sound of Raimi's 'deadites', Warren also adopts his directorial techniques, with the camera rushing around the hotel and through undergrowth towards the terrified victims.

The cast are, as expected, rather dreadful (although Nikki Brooks as Janet is cute), the gore is extremely cheap looking, and the special effects range from the inventive to the downright pathetic, but Bloody New year is such a ridiculous and completely surreal experience from start to finish that It actually proves to be pretty enjoyable; after all, any film with malevolent kitchen utensils can't be completely worthless.

Teenagers?? The actors look like they are well into their 20's, if not older! A group of "teens" find themselves in a spot of bother at the seaside when their boat starts to sink and they swim to the nearest island. Here there is a seemingly deserted hotel, stuck in a time warp of New Year's Eve 1959. Ghastly things start to happen to them, one by one. Plot wise I felt able to follow it, despite being a load of nonsense. On the negative side the acting was very wooden, as mentioned before the actors look much older than teenagers, the special effects are cheap looking and it has an obvious low budget feel and look to it. On the positives some of it was filmed at Barry Island seaside resort, a place that I have visited several times and it was nice to see how it used to look. Among the effects are a few clever tricks, such as an arm coming out of a mirror and pulling a victim inside. The British VHS comes in a terrific, 3D box. The picture quality isn't great, not sure if it has ever been released on DVD/BR but deserves to be. Not Warren's best film and not the best film to watch on NYE either but reasonably entertaining if you like bad movies.