Decades later, a group of teenagers – couples Lesley and Tom and Janet and Rick, with their friend Spud – are spending the day at a seaside funfair when they see a trio of hooligans – Dad, Ace and The Bear – terrorising an American tourist named Carol.

Rick, convinced that someone is staging an elaborate prank, tries to turn off the projector but inadvertently plays a promotional reel for the hotel showing partygoers in front of the entrance.

Desperately trying to find a way off the island, the survivors separate and are each plagued by supernatural happenings: Lesley and Tom find a cottage near the shore, where Lesley is attacked by a monstrous figure that disappears after Tom spears it; Janet and Rick hear disembodied voices in the woods and see a plane crash into a nearby building; and Carol is suddenly caught in a snowstorm inside the hotel.

She tells them that they are trapped in a time warp created when an aircraft carrying an experimental cloaking device crashed on the island on New Year's Eve, 1959.

They make it to the shore and Carol manages to board the hooligans' boat, but Rick is trapped in quicksand and killed by the zombified Dad, who slices his head with an outboard motor propeller.

[3] Warren was approached by Maxine Julius to make a horror film for her and developed the plot over seven days with line producer Hayden Pearce.

[4] The fairground scenes were filmed at Barry Island's long-running funfair with minimal supervision from the owners, who gave the crew full use of the site and its attractions at a cost of £300 (equivalent to £1,110 in 2023) for a week's shooting.

The extras playing the dancing hotel guests were members of a local rock 'n' roll preservation society and worked unpaid.

[3] A stunt scene in which the character Rick opens the back door of a cottage only to find himself dangling over a cliff edge was performed by actor Mark Powley without safety equipment.

[3] Warren had envisaged a particularly bloody scene for the film's climax, where the zombified "Dad" (Steve Emerson) kills Rick by slicing his head with an outboard motor propeller.

[1] On its first release, Bloody New Year was negatively reviewed by Variety, which described it as a "negligible horror film rehashing the corniest format available".

The author added: "It's strictly filler [...] Acting by the colourless thesps is poor and the Fujicolor visuals [...] are far too pretty and cheerful to create the desired atmosphere.

[10] According to Jake Dee of JoBlo.com, the film's "cheap and silly" practical effects are reminiscent of a "fun early Herschell Gordon Lewis movie".

"[11] Alluding to the film's "bonkers" plotting, Cheryl Eddy of Gizmodo writes that it "has a completely forgettable cast aside from Roman's level-headed final girl, but is otherwise full of absolutely unforgettable details.

[13] Writing for Video Watchdog magazine, Richard Harland Smith describes the film as a "barrel-scraping rehash of horror tropes from Shock Waves (creepy island hotel), Dawn of the Dead (bickering TV commentators), The Evil Dead (girl-next-door turned cackling, whey-faced ghoul) and even Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo."

"[14] Preston Barta of the Denton Record-Chronicle remarks that Bloody New Year "could perhaps be best described as an episode of Scooby-Doo that is sent through the filter of The Shining and The Evil Dead", adding that in some places "it's got early Sam Raimi written all over it."

"[15] Writing for Sight & Sound magazine, Anne Billson compares the film to the Japanese horror comedy House (1977) and its production values to those of "early Doctor Who".