New Year's Evil is a 1980 American slasher film written and directed by Emmett Alston, co-written by Leonard Neubauer, and starring Kip Niven, Roz Kelly, and Chris Wallace.
One New Year's Eve, popular punk rock/new wave DJ Diane Sullivan (known as "Blaze" among her fans) is hosting a late-night countdown celebration of music and partying, televised live from a Hollywood hotel and simulcast on local radio.
While the killer searches for a victim to kill for the stroke of midnight in the Mountain Time Zone, he inadvertently angers a gang of bikers, who chase him into a drive-in theater.
He murders one of the bikers, steals a couple's car to avoid being recognized, and drives off with the girl still in the backseat, intending to make her his next victim, but she manages to escape.
Eventually the killer manages to sneak into the hotel, which by now has been completely locked down by the police, and is revealed to be Diane's husband, Richard, who was previously thought to be too busy to attend.
"[4] For many cast and crew members, New Year's Evil was their first feature film: Kip Niven,[4] Chris Wallace,[5] Grant Cramer,[6] Thomas E. Ackerman,[7] Teri Copley,[8] Taaffe O'Connell, and Julie Purcell.
According to Thomas E. Ackerman, Director of Photography, they were "using one of the last Cinemobile production vans in which all camera, lighting, and grip equipment was compartmentalized on a single vehicle, with an on-board generator...one Brute arc...my only 'big gun' for night exteriors, along with a couple of Maxi-brutes and four big-eye 10ks...In fact, it is amazing what you can accomplish with very little.
[15] Film scholar John Kenneth Muir notes Sullivan is "squarely in the Norman Bates mold; someone driven to violence by his family relationships" citing the Incantation: "You've castrated me.
[26] Bill Cosford for the Miami Herald described it as among the "knife-in-the-night genre" using a rock-concert backdrop featuring high-decibel "new-wave" bands saying "this music and it's strange milieu is used to nice effect, punching up a wheezy plot.
[29] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a 1½ and wrote, "New Year's Evil is an endangered species - a plain, old-fashioned, gory thriller.
But as thrillers go these days, New Year's Evil is a throwback to an older and simpler tradition, one that flourished way back in the dimly remembered past, before 1978".
[32] Chuck Blystone for The Pantagraph while commenting on the "offensive qualities" of "Slash-'em up films" contended "While it is classier than the norm" it was "yet another attempt to break from that mold" that "generally maintains a higher standard" with "one marvelous shock scene...so well done it compares favorably to similar heartstoppers in Jaws".
"[8] Jesse Hassenger of GQ magazine included it in his list of "Exactly 13 Great New Year's Eve Movies" calling it "an unusual hybrid of ridiculous-gimmick and serial-killer thriller slasher" declaring "1980's quickie oddity New Year's Evil... wins the token holiday-themed slasher spot" while describing the live footage and accompanying neon lighting as giving the movie an extra jolt of novelty and saying "it's not exactly terrifying, but it's entertaining perverse and has genuine holiday atmosphere, giving a Dick Clark-style TV broadcast a menacing, purgatorial feel that now doubles as a time capsule" adding "the theme song by Shadow rips.
Jake Dee writing for The BLACK SHEEP column of Joblo.com debated: extremely overlooked in the context of standalone slasher flicks of the early 80s" suffering the misfortune of getting lost in the ungodly spate of post-HALLOWEEN imitators and cheaply made slasher derivations that flooded the market at that time saying the film bucks convention in more ways than it clings to it with a kickass soundtrack full of late 70s shredders, a hilarious middle-section car-ride, and a drolly assorted death-stroke every dozen minutes or so making it harder to understand why NEW YEAR'S EVIL was so summarily panned to begin with and claiming the film rises above many to most (meritorious)!
[35] "Alston's low-budget film certainly entertained as it juxtaposed an eighties rock score with a series of contrived killings, played out to the darkest of unintentional comedy.
"[36] Roger Ebert explained "The movie takes place on New Year's Eve, during a national TV show obviously inspired by "Midnight Special".
[30] The New Year's Evil soundtrack comprised rock songs performed live by the real bands Shadow and Made in Japan and an electronic music score with Moog synthesizer composed by W. Michael Lewis and Laurin Rinder, who are credited with producing the live recording of the movie's main title song of the same name, which plays over the opening and closing credits and once during the film.
"The main title track "New Year's Evil" by Shadow, and "The Cooler" by Made in Japan were pressed as 7" Vinyl 45rpm promotional singles and sent to 500 radio stations throughout the US.
Like the opening to Friday the 13th Part III, it's just one of those rare original recordings for low-budget horror film that's a complete gem, and it should be an American staple of New Year's Eve celebrations".
The theme song, done by Shadow and appropriately called "New Year's Evil", is incredibly infectious and plays over both the opening and closing credits as well as once during the course of the film.
The incidental and mood music is fairly typical Moog synthesizer suspense and stinger fare, but it works well in the context of the new wave slasher film.
It was a golden age for both heavy metal and over-the-top horror cheese; I credit much of my personal growth to those countless nights watching people with questionable morals bleed out as some Aquanetted guy in pleather pants screeched on about how rock and roll will never die.