Bloody New Year

One of those films that's so average it's actually a good watch.

An eighties made film that's got a fifties time travel element to it, seemingly filmed in the same location as 1987's Who serial "Delta and the Bannermen" starring Sylvester McCoy.

Fittingly this has a late 80's Dr Who feel to it, bad dialogue and a cheesy synth score. But it also terribly entertaining, this has a lot too do with the cast, not the script.

There's enough decent set pieces to keep the horror fan interested. Finally a decent effort for a British attempt at horror from this era.

Bloody New Year (1987) is a British horror film 🇬🇧 that I recently watched on Tubi. The story follows a group of teenagers who stumble upon a remote island and discover a hotel still decorated for a New Year's Eve party-despite it being the middle of summer.

Directed by Norman Warren (Pray, Gunpowder), the film stars Suzy Aitchison (Clatterford), Nikki Brooks (Jupiter Moon), Steve Wilsher (The Mad), and Mark Powley (Bronson).

The film had a distinct vibe that reminded me of the Necronomicon. While the makeup effects for the possessed were only average, I enjoyed the way they were presented-it made for an entertaining watch. While Bloody New Year isn't a perfect film or a genre classic, it has enough charm to warrant a viewing.

I'd give it a 5/10.

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.

"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.

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.