Given all that bank made by Halloween and Friday the 13th, the immortal Cannon Films wanted to get in on some of that calendar-slasher action, making its stake on the holiday of hollow resolutions with the punny but cannily titled New Year’s Evil.
It’s Dec. 31 in Los Angeles, and the big show is the New Wave New Year’s countdown, Hollywood Hotline, staged at a hotel and hosted by Blaze, a supposed punk-rock diva played by a blah Roz Kelly (aka Pinky Tuscadero of TV’s Happy Days). The live show gets off to a grand start when a caller identifying himself as “Evil” says he’s going to kill someone when the clock strikes midnight at each of the contiguous United States’ four time zones, culminating in Blaze’s death.
What makes New Year’s Evil different from many slashers is that after the prologue, director Emmett Alston (9 Deaths of the Ninja) makes no effort to hide the identity of the killer. Evil’s played by Kip Niven (Magnum Force), he of the feathered hair, Fila track suit, occasional Bob Hope-esque mask and mobile tape recorder, which he calls a “miracle of modern technology.” Using a variety of disguises and pick-up lines (“There’s a big party up at Erik Estrada’s place”), he finds a woman or two to slay every hour, on the hour. “Auld Lang Syne,” bitches!
Among Evil’s victims are a nurse (Taafee O’Connell, Galaxy of Terror), a bar-hopping dumb blonde who discusses diarrhea (Louisa Moritz, The Last American Virgin) and a young Teri Copley (Brain Donors), whom he catches mid-makeout at the drive-in. The film’s “twist” is startlingly obvious to anyone who pays attention the overacting of Blaze’s sad-sack son (Grant Cramer, Hardbodies) in the early scenes, and Alston has one scare scene up his sleeve that I bet worked wonders in theaters. Regardless, Niven’s multifaceted performance is such a mad gas, it makes the movie well worth watching. —Rod Lott