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Screenwriter Leonard Neubauer (Russ Meyer’s Black Snake) and
director/cinematographer Emmet Alston (Three-Day
Weekend, Demonwarp) helmed this prime
piece of punksploitation for the Golan-Globus colossal Cannon company in 1980. Set
on New Year’s Eve around a countdown of the year’s hottest New Wave Rock via
the Hollywood Hotline special, New Year’s Evil, hosted by the fast-talkin’ rich
girl Diane “Blaze” Sullivan (Roz Kelley - Happy
Days’ Pinky Tuscadero, Full Moon High),
makin’ with the outré “punk” glamour, and showing her self-involved controller
cards while preparing for the big gig backstage. Press agent and hubby are both
MIA, the hus found to be getting tossed in Palm Springs, and the agent mums
after announcement of a wardrobe change—never a good way to start a slasher
flick (or, splendidly, depending on perspective). Naturally, the agent gets it,
snared by a drippy water faucet trap and taken out
Psycho-style, but all behind a
curtain sans gore. First kill before the plot reveal and credits, a smashing
way to set the scene.
Pan to cruisin’ traffic and the
theme “New Year’s Evil” by Shadow (one of the two bands who perform live in the
film, this’un lite-NWoBHM punk/metal fun), with lyrics foreshadowing or echoing
what’s gone down on screen—a continuing trend throughout the flick pointed out
by my observant ladyfriend. We follow a car fulla punks in leathers, chains,
facial piercings and one pullin’ a Dave Vanian pale-face. The “hell-raising”
different class get the quick peder-van open-door flash en route to the New
Year’s Evil bash—2 garbanzas down in the first 300 seconds, yowza! They come upon
the venue and hassle the security cop with switchblade combs, effeminate voice
and general hijinks, y’know like “punks” do.
Backstage the all-business Blaze is
greeted by her son Derek (Grant Cramer – Hard
Bodies, Killer Klowns from Outer
Space) with fab news and flowers, but the selfish mama doesn’t heed her
breed’s good news, by which he’s none too amused. We come to find Derek to be
one disturbed and insecure individual and these happenings to be commonplace in
their relationship, and she boogies down to the big, bright stage to announce
the shindig. Shortly thereafter the mood gets tense when a voice-box disguised
caller in a dim moonlit phone booth called ‘Evil’ announces he’ll make a return
call at the stroke of New Year’s to broadcast an execution over the airwaves.
Cut to
Crawford Sanitarium under clouds of darkness as an all-night worker moves the
rubbish on its way and a shadowy figure slides in the dim halls in the shuffle. Light rises and we transition to the
loonies dancing in much the same manner as the live crowd broadcast over the
tee-vee, perhaps a “statement” by the movie-makers (?), and nurse blondie
slides out for a smoke, she looking like a fuck-flick extra. A dashing, beach
boy-type appears as extra (with no alert of his upcoming arrival) orderly help and propositions a pre-shift
celebratory champagne toast to the tart, to which she protests little. Mood
music is played, dancing goes down and a round of tonsil hockey moves swiftly
horizontal on an examination table. The record button on a mobile tape machine is pressed and he kills as the hour strikes when much
mania masks the screams, replete with a clever jump-cut—the victim later
to be found as closet candy by a co-worker.
Back at the studios Lieutenant Clayton makes the scene and plays the “you’re asking for it” card by condemning the audience and elaborating on how it’ll be a hard push to pinpoint a crazy out of the crowd in attendance (more sly slices by the writers???). When Evil calls in as promised he lays out it'll be 12AM in each time zone with more kills to come, and he’s not bluffin’, as corpse discovery enters. An interesting move knocking the suspense down a bit is the killer’s face in plain sight (Kip Niven – Magnum Force, Earthquake) only a third of the way in, but forces conspire throughout to make you consider cahoots.
Next move is affixing a swingin’ soup-strainer to become a mustachioed, leisure suit’ed sleeze to hit a disco where he (Evil, natch) comes upon the 2nd piece o’ Class-A prototypical B-movie bimbo frame, Sally (Louisa Moritz – Death Race 2000, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Cannonball!), a New Age obsessed character into TM (transcendental meditation), TA (transactional analysis), Zen and the whole bag. After luring her out to hop with the jet-set they begin to make their way ‘fore he finds her more grounded roomie Lisa is also along for the ride. This hangs him up, so he’s a little perturbed, and stops at a liquor store for some mood enchancers, sending Lisa in for some top-shelf charm. While she’s inside Sally gets the sack, and hiding afterward he tags Lisa and makes it a two-fer. Shortly thereafter we’re back at the studios as the band Made in Japan (Teenage Head’esque punk rock’n’roll) charge into a tune called, appropriately, "Dumb Blondes."
Donning clerical gear, Christ-collar and the whole shebang to masquerade as man of God, Mr Evil comes up on a pack of bikers, culminating in a fender bender and run-down. Dodging into the now deceased Van Nuys Drive-In while splashes of gore and commentary from a double-bill trailer of Blood Feast (1972 – aka Night of a Thousand Cats) and Joel M Reed’s Blood Bath (1976) transmit over the outdoor screens, with the aural tag lines also oddly appropriate to the scene’s going ons—another clever but deliberate subtlety. He tangles with one of the beard-and-denim boys who gets the stick (but we’re not sure if he’s a goner) before ejecting the male half of a youthful fondle-fest—prime bullstuff with only two half-garbanzas and a areola peak equaling one total melon—for cover and dashing out with numero 3 blonde bomber. Perhaps in a fit of frustration he pulls off into a parking strip and is accosted by some drunks when blondie makes a jump and he gives chase through a spare forest which (oddly) leads to a sports field. Evil creeps around hunting for flesh, but law shouts drive him out and his mark is missed.
A new character graces the screen backstage as fans of exploitation and sleaze get a diatribe from Dr Reed (John Alderman - David F. Friedman's Trader Hornee, Pink Angels, Black Godfather, Cleopatra Jones, Cannonball!) running down the whole gamut of killer motivation as a wise figure is bound to do in such situations, with a focus on the fact some breast bashing hints to a mother fixation. The “Father” arrives on the sly, peeping from a distance and susses the clampdown and that he’ll have to make alternate entrance with midnight fast approaching, dashing through the car park and beckoning assistance from a man of the law who gets bricked and disrobed for a quick cover. Once inside he slides into street clothes while the strains of “Bonzai,” by Made in Japan pipe about, fitting for entering the eye of the action on a veritable suicide mission.
Back at the studios Lieutenant Clayton makes the scene and plays the “you’re asking for it” card by condemning the audience and elaborating on how it’ll be a hard push to pinpoint a crazy out of the crowd in attendance (more sly slices by the writers???). When Evil calls in as promised he lays out it'll be 12AM in each time zone with more kills to come, and he’s not bluffin’, as corpse discovery enters. An interesting move knocking the suspense down a bit is the killer’s face in plain sight (Kip Niven – Magnum Force, Earthquake) only a third of the way in, but forces conspire throughout to make you consider cahoots.
Next move is affixing a swingin’ soup-strainer to become a mustachioed, leisure suit’ed sleeze to hit a disco where he (Evil, natch) comes upon the 2nd piece o’ Class-A prototypical B-movie bimbo frame, Sally (Louisa Moritz – Death Race 2000, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Cannonball!), a New Age obsessed character into TM (transcendental meditation), TA (transactional analysis), Zen and the whole bag. After luring her out to hop with the jet-set they begin to make their way ‘fore he finds her more grounded roomie Lisa is also along for the ride. This hangs him up, so he’s a little perturbed, and stops at a liquor store for some mood enchancers, sending Lisa in for some top-shelf charm. While she’s inside Sally gets the sack, and hiding afterward he tags Lisa and makes it a two-fer. Shortly thereafter we’re back at the studios as the band Made in Japan (Teenage Head’esque punk rock’n’roll) charge into a tune called, appropriately, "Dumb Blondes."
Donning clerical gear, Christ-collar and the whole shebang to masquerade as man of God, Mr Evil comes up on a pack of bikers, culminating in a fender bender and run-down. Dodging into the now deceased Van Nuys Drive-In while splashes of gore and commentary from a double-bill trailer of Blood Feast (1972 – aka Night of a Thousand Cats) and Joel M Reed’s Blood Bath (1976) transmit over the outdoor screens, with the aural tag lines also oddly appropriate to the scene’s going ons—another clever but deliberate subtlety. He tangles with one of the beard-and-denim boys who gets the stick (but we’re not sure if he’s a goner) before ejecting the male half of a youthful fondle-fest—prime bullstuff with only two half-garbanzas and a areola peak equaling one total melon—for cover and dashing out with numero 3 blonde bomber. Perhaps in a fit of frustration he pulls off into a parking strip and is accosted by some drunks when blondie makes a jump and he gives chase through a spare forest which (oddly) leads to a sports field. Evil creeps around hunting for flesh, but law shouts drive him out and his mark is missed.
A new character graces the screen backstage as fans of exploitation and sleaze get a diatribe from Dr Reed (John Alderman - David F. Friedman's Trader Hornee, Pink Angels, Black Godfather, Cleopatra Jones, Cannonball!) running down the whole gamut of killer motivation as a wise figure is bound to do in such situations, with a focus on the fact some breast bashing hints to a mother fixation. The “Father” arrives on the sly, peeping from a distance and susses the clampdown and that he’ll have to make alternate entrance with midnight fast approaching, dashing through the car park and beckoning assistance from a man of the law who gets bricked and disrobed for a quick cover. Once inside he slides into street clothes while the strains of “Bonzai,” by Made in Japan pipe about, fitting for entering the eye of the action on a veritable suicide mission.
Under watchful eye Blaze is now blood-hounded
by a uniformed man, but as they make their way back down to stage, there’s a
jam-up with the elevator orchestrated by the Evil one, who pulls the stick outta
the circuit board before it goes ground-floor kablooey. The uniform gets
the knock and Blaze gets an earful of his motivators before strapping her
into the under-side of the elevator for death’s ride. The fuzz make chase, with Evil retreating to the roof in
a Acromegalic’esque Rondo Hatton-type mask. Cornered by the heat and with no
choices left he tips on the edge and recites Hamlet (“To die, to sleep…”)
before the jump-and-drop straight down to the hard ground. But… the mask moves
on making wonder if a second character was in cahoots all along, and the beat
goes on as the driver to the ambulance isn’t the face expected…Can’t cough up the crux who’s and what’s its, all motion heretofore was no big surprise, but you gotta see the coda with your own eyes. Overall New Year’s Evil is a well-shot and well-paced film with more depth than appears on the surface and a personal fave-rave. For those with a nose for this kinda damage it can be partook in full on YouTube, streamed via Netflix, or grab yourself a made-to-order, legit copy from the Warner Archive Collection. Ya better dig it, ya hear!
Nuff respect to Joe Bob Briggs, who surely wouldn't begrudge a man a garbanza "grab".
