Scott LeBrun 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.

BA_Harrison Anyone expecting Bloody New Year to be a cheesy slice of seasonal slasher fun will no doubt be sorely disappointed: despite having a title that conjures up images of a bloody Father Time slicing New Years revellers in half with his massive scythe, the film is, in fact, a supernatural horror that shamelessly rips off Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead whilst throwing in as much random nonsense that it possibly can.After running into a spot of bother with some nasty fair-ground thugs, a group of teens set off in their sail boat, only to encounter more trouble when a collision with a rock forces them to abandon ship and swim to a nearby island. There, they discover a strange, seemingly abandoned hotel adorned with New Year decorations (despite it being mid-July), and encounter the restless spirits of the hotel's inhabitants, who have been trapped in limbo since 1959 thanks to a government experiment gone wrong.This logic-free plot allows for a scatter-shot approach by director Norman J. Warren, who gives viewers everything from traditional transparent spooks to a possessed bird-shaped Newell post (!) in the process. Other bizarre occurrences include a murderous sheik emerging from an old black and white film, a killer fishing net, a monster that emerges from a table-top, walls that come alive, an indoor blizzard, and a collection of Evil Dead style zombies. As well as borrowing the look and sound of Raimi's 'deadites', Warren also adopts his directorial techniques, with the camera rushing around the hotel and through undergrowth towards the terrified victims.The cast are, as expected, rather dreadful (although Nikki Brooks as Janet is cute), the gore is extremely cheap looking, and the special effects range from the inventive to the downright pathetic, but Bloody New year is such a ridiculous and completely surreal experience from start to finish that It actually proves to be pretty enjoyable; after all, any film with malevolent kitchen utensils can't be completely worthless.

lordzedd-3 Here comes a series of stupid events starting with why the hell wasn't there any dialog for the first ten minutes of the movie? I mean, I felt Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton was going to waddle by. Second, why were those two thugs trying to kill them? I mean what the hell did these kids do to deserve to be attacked by mindless brutes? Why did the carnival worker side with them? They were paying costumers. Next, what time warp, they were dead. What time warp? There was no bloody time warp. Time warp means, they would either be really young, really old or evolved into futuristic monsters. But that wasn't the case, a table cloth became a monster, an elevator became a monster and the dead become monsters. Next question, how the hell did the creeps from the carnival find them on the island, the boat sank. How could they find a sunk boat in thousands of miles of ocean. Really, did the writer think at all? Lastly, bad ending. The last survivor gets on the long boat that brought them to the island and escaped. Then the other shoe drops and a unknown force pulls her through the bottom of the boat, kills her and sticks her in a mirror and now she has to watch her friends at a New Year's party while she's stuck in a mirror. It's garbage and I give it the LUMP OF COAL.

binjus79 gets a good score for its countless scenes of unintentional comedy masquerading as 'terror'! Loads of great bits such as the baddie gypsy with the string belt who keeps popping up and just will not die! others are the tablecloth monster; the melting lift and the baddie who 'accidently' skateboards himself into an enormous cooking pot/wheelie bin that is itself possessed and proceeds to gobble him up! I've just finished at DeMonfort Uni in Leicester where the director of this flick once attended a live discussion on the subject of British budget movies....how he is able to intellectualise any of his films (especially the early exploitation crap) is almost as funny as the man buried in the sand up to his neck versus the sailing boat propellers at the end of BNY! i think the hierarchy cottoned on to Warren's inept film-making antics though as this appears to be his last ever 'feature'. Enjoy!