Directed by Emmett Alston
Written by Leonard Neubauer and Emmett Alston
Starring Roz Kelly, Kip Niven, Chris Wallace, and Grant Cramer
MPAA Rating: R
Runtime: 85 minutes
Available from Kino Lorber on April 12

by Clayton Hayes, Staff Writer

New Year’s Evil, which was originally released in theaters in December of 1980, is one of those films I’d long been aware of but had never seen. Slashers have never really been a favorite of mine so I tend not to watch them unless I have a good reason. But as I was scrolling through a list of upcoming releases, there was something in this one that caught my eye. Just three words, three magic words: “producers Golan-Globus.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the Israeli production duo of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus and with the saga of Cannon Films in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, I highly recommend Mark Hartley’s 2014 documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. Suffice to say that their ideas were often pretty ambitious but they usually weren’t able to translate those ideas in a way that was considered successful. Their films are almost always interesting, though, and New Year’s Evil is no exception.

Set in Los Angeles, we’re introduced to radio host Diane “Blaze” Sullivan (Kelly) who is about to host a live, televised New Year’s Eve special for her popular show Hollywood Hotline. The career-making event is derailed, though, when a creep calling himself “Evil” (Niven) calls in to the show, threatening to go on a murderous spree that’ll end with someone close to her. The narrative splits to follow Blaze and “Evil” in parallel as the hours and minutes tick down to midnight. While that sounds like a cookie-cutter post-Halloween “holiday slasher,” New Year’s Evil has more than enough of the oddball Golan-Globus sensibility to keep viewers entertained.

There’s of course plenty of music, not unexpected from a film about a radio show. But who would expect a film like this to have a theme song? Well, it does. It has an honest-to-goodness theme song that plays over the opening credits (and then several more times throughout the film). Not only that, it was co-written by Roxanne Seeman and Eddie del Barrio, both of whom had recently worked with the band Earth, Wind & Fire. del Barrio, in fact, has a Grammy nod to his name for composing their single “Fantasy.”

The pedigree for the rest of the film’s songs is a bit harder to trace. They’re credited to members of two bands that appear onstage in the Hollywood Hotline show, Shadow and Made in Japan, both of which seem to have formed solely for the purposes of this film. Their music is fun enough though occasionally confusing. For example, I’m not sure any other film features extras trying to mosh to slow jazz/blues groove music. Oh, and did I mention this show is supposed to be taking place in a Holiday Inn? It doesn’t feel like the hippest joint for a (self-described) new-wave/punk show, but then again I don’t know much about L.A. in the late ‘70.

In the end, I found this to be a pretty Interesting (if tame) example of the slashers that were flooding movie screens around the time of its release. The killer’s appearance is never really hidden from the audience; in fact his face is featured prominently in one of the film’s more recognizable pieces of promotional art. What don’t learn until very late is the killer’s relationship with Blaze, who he continues to threaten throughout the night. I thought Kip Niven, who is not an actor I was familiar with, was great casting for the killer, too. Tall and handsome, he fits into the “Hollywood” setting perfectly, but behind his eyes there’s just the right twinge of darkness. It was a really fun performance and, for me, the highlight of the film (though Cramer as Blaze’s son is a close second).

This release seems like a good value as well. It’s a new 2K master and, I thought, looked very good. The sleeve and reversible jacket insert also feature a newly-commissioned image by artist Vince Evans along with the classic cover image I mentioned above. There’s also a few bonus features thrown into the mix as well, including an audio commentary track with the film’s director and a documentary on the making of the film featuring its cinematographer, Thomas Ackerman, and several actors (including Niven and Cramer). It’s a great buy for existing fans looking for a solid New Year’s Evil Blu-ray or for fans of early slashers looking for something with a unique feel.