While nowhere near as extensive as Christmas or Halloween-related horror, New Year's Eve and NY's Day do, in fact, have a decent amount of horror-oriented flicks devoted to them, though you might have to dig a bit to find some of them, admittedly. In fact, some of them I haven't seen myself, but I hope to rectify that in the years to come.
In the meantime, for those of you who aren't big on going out and don't want to spend your New Year's Eve with Seacrest and the like, here's a quick run-through of the films I have seen and the others I came across in my search.
Please note that I will be covering a few NYE-themed horror movies much more extensively later this week, so I didn't include those. (You can probably figure out which ones by their omission.)
Let's start with the ones I have seen. One of the most obvious entries is the amusingly bad New Year's Evil, which admittedly has the coolest NYE-horror title of them all- plus a rockin' theme song by the obscure New Wave/Metal band Shadow to boot, which you can listen to here. I like the movie a lot and will almost certainly cover it next year, but for now, it remains one of the best known of the NYE-themed horror flicks out there, for better or worse.
It revolves around the host of a punk rock/new wave-themed TV show, known as "Blaze" (Roz Kelly, aka "Pinky," the Fonz' girlfriend, from the TV show Happy Days), who finds herself targeted by an unknown killer who says he will kill a "naughty" girl with the passing of each New Year in a given time zone, culminating in the murder of Blaze herself for the fourth and final celebration.
Needless to say, the killer is as good as their word, leading Blaze to panic for her life, as her team scrambles to keep her safe and the cops try their best to thwart the killer before he can kill again. It's typical slasher movie shenanigans, but it's a fun enough flick, and worth seeing at least once. I don't watch it every year, but I do tend to watch it every few years or so, so it's fun enough for me to re-visit now and again, for whatever that's worth.
One film that was new to me this year was Sadik 2, a somewhat obscure French film that takes place in the run-up to the New Year, as a group of friends that were all raised in a Foster Home together meet up for their annual NYE celebration in an isolated house in the French countryside.
One of them is a massive horror fan, so, as with many post-Scream horror flicks, it is gleefully self-referential and meta throughout, so if you don't like that sort of thing, you will probably find it annoying AF. (In fact, said fan sports a Ghostface mask for an extended period of time, which the filmmakers had to blur out for copyright issues, though they state at the beginning it was because the mask was "just too scary" to show, lol.)
BTW, as with films like Surf II and Thankskilling 3, there is no preceding entry, so don't bother looking for a first Sadik. Instead, it's a reference to a faux film within the film that the rabid horror fan claims is the real deal, which is to say a "snuff" film. Perhaps needless to say, the title is a tip-off to what ends up happening, the end result of which is like a combination of a holiday-themed slasher flick, Scream and another somewhat obscure-but-fantastic French film, Man Bites Dog.
While the first forty-five minutes is action-free, points to the film for allowing us to get to know the characters before starting to bump them off. Whether or not you care for that approach will vary from viewer to viewer, as will your apprehension towards subtitles or foreign films in general.
If you can get past those things, though, it's a fun little movie with lots of in-jokes for horror fans and some solid gore effects, one of which is reminiscent of the old slasher Maniac and/or Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. And dig that horror fan's VHS collection! I, for one, would welcome a Sadik 3, and given that this one only clocks in around 75 minutes, it's not a huge commitment, even for you subtitle-phobes.
A lesser entry is the more straight-forward slasher-esque thriller, The Eve, which, like Sadik 2, is one that takes a while to get going, but doesn't have half the pay-off- or sense of humor- of that film. Don't get me wrong, as with the last film, the extended opening section does allow one time to get to know the four main characters, but you may not want to, given all the time they spend squabbling.
The plot is pretty similar to the last film, too, only instead of a group of people raised in a Community Home, it's a group of old college friends that have since grown apart who decide to get together again, in hopes of mending some fences. Two of them used to date- it didn't end well- and the other invested in a property with the same guy, which ended up getting seized via eminent domain, taking away his life's savings in the process.
As you can imagine, when the guy responsible for both ends up dead- which happens off-screen- it doesn't take long for fingers to start pointing, even at the newbie, a girl the guy who lost his money invited without giving anyone a heads-up first about, which also didn't go over well. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that said girl was caught kissing the dead guy shortly before he disappeared- and mind, you, that was a guy she literally just met hours before.
The end result is okay, but the movie moves really slow, which may turn off some viewers, even at only a 85 minute running time, a fair bit of which is devoted to the ever-popular slow-crawl credits. Still, the movie isn't that bad, and it was partially financed via Indiegogo, and I do my best to try and support indie filmmakers, so I won't bash it too much.
It did win some awards at a NYC film festival (Chain NYC), and the cast isn't half-bad- particularly Miranda Noelle Wilson, who plays the troubled Lacey and won Best Actress at said film festival- so there's that. But if you're a hardcore horror and/or slasher movie fan, keep in mind it isn't very gory and is really more of a twisted thriller, so maybe stick with Sadik 2 if you fall into either of those categories.
I'm not sure if it counts, but if you can dig up a copy of the short-lived TV anthology show Fear Itself on DVD, from horror maven Mick Garris, the entry entitled "New Year's Day" is a lot of fun. (*Writer's edit: The episode is available on YouTube, as of this writing, along with the series itself, in its entirety. Click here to watch it!)
It stars the should-have-been-a-bigger-star Briana Evigan, perhaps best-known for the horror remakes of Sorority Row and Mother's Day, who plays a girl who wakes up, Walking Dead-premiere style, with all hell having broken loose while she was out cold after New Year's Eve festivities and no idea of what's going on.
As she begins to put together the pieces, she quickly realizes that something has gone horribly awry, as there is blood all over her roommate's bedroom, and her next-door neighbor is acting decidedly oddly, bashing her head into the door and walls. She calls a friend, who tells her to get there asap, and the rest of the episode follows her on her journey there, as she continues to run into more of these oddly acting people and fights for her life.
Are they zombies? Psycho killers? Was there a chemical leak that is causing most everyone to act crazy? Find out for yourself, and though I've seen similar twists before, I still dug this variation, which was directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, of the Saw series and Repo! The Genetic Opera fame, and also features an early turn from the late Cory Montieth (Glee), made all the more haunting by a certain aspect of the ending.
The rest of the series is worth checking out, too, with early, pre-fame appearances from the likes of Anna Kendrick and Elizabeth Moss, plus turns by Eric Roberts and Brandon Routh and episodes directed by such horror luminaries as John Landis and Stuart Gordon. It's hit and miss, like most anthologies, but the good ones are really good.
Well, that about wraps it up for the ones I've seen, but here are some others I haven't that I may try to catch in the future. According to IMDB.com, the following horror movies are also set on NYE/NYD:
Antisocial (have this one and the sequel, haven't watched either yet), Alien Blood, Area 407, Blackwood Evil, Circle of Eight, Countdown, The Exhibitionists, The Fifth Cord, Ghostkeeper, Intensive Care, Kristen, Life Blood (have this one, haven't watched it yet), Lost Signal (ditto), The Mansion, Mark of the Beast, Midnighters, The Millennium Bug, Minutes to Midnight, Mumbai 125 KM, Mystery of the Wax Museum, The Night of the Virgin, Resolution, Sickness House, The Signal (2007- also have this one- not to be confused with the more recent movie of the same name), Steel Trap, Still, Taboo, Talisman and Transamerican Killer, aka Switch Killer.
Well, that about does it! Have a happy- and safe- New Year's Eve and Day, and be sure and join me Wednesday and Friday for a couple more New Year's horror flicks that I love. See you then, and thanks, as always for reading!
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