New Year's Evil (1980)Hey, if you're cool, you know what bad bad rubber piggy means, right? No? Only me?
Okay, I have a major obsession with the long-gone cartoon Zim so look it up. If you haven't accepted Gir into your heart, you are definitely a heathen. Or Gaz. Or Dib.
Or even worse, Gaz and Dib's father. The Almighty Tallest would agree.
This movie is just awful in all aspects - plot, casting, acting, shooting - and the ending? Bleah. And it's supposed to be a movie about bringing in the new decade of the 80's, right? So why didn't it come out until that December? It should have been first, but the first horror movie of this decade, and I may be mistaken (I am a LOT) seems to be The Changeling, released in March. But I didn't see that one so we're stuck with this turkey.
It wouldn't be until August 1, 1981 until the official launch of MTV in the US - the UK actually had what was called Classic MTV in 1980 (which, you whippersnappers, this old lady was present for) with the very first video 'Video Killed The Radio Star' by The Buggles (which was actually written in 1977 and recorded in 1979 for the UK). Before that, we were stuck with American Bandstand for the most part (Soul Train and Midnight Special for others) and that is kind of what this movie is patterned after. Starring Roz Kelly as Blaze (or Pinky Tuscadero from Happy Days as others knew her), I found her kind of old to be stirring up the young'uns into a 'new wave' frenzy (sounded like plain old rock and roll to me) but look at Dick Clark - he was just as hip with the... okay so he was more for adults but he kept 'young' up until his death in 2012 at 82.
Off topic, sorry but this movie was such a snore that it's easy to get distracted. Blaze is kind of a female Dick Clark, and is joined by affiliates in all time zones for a big New Year's Eve bash where they're gonna celebrate midnight four times. And so is a crazed killer. Disguising his voice he calls in Blaze's hot line telling her he's gonna kill someone for each midnight, the last one being her. I remember when I saw this the first time that figuring out who the psycho was wasn't that hard - this was one of those movies where it showed a wife and mother being submersed in her career at the cost of her family. You know, a real misogynistic movie. If a woman has a career, she doesn't care about her loved ones, right? Pffft.
So her teenage son is starting his own acting career but this is a big night and she's a bit distracted - which brings the disturbed out of him. C'mon... if he was that disturbed it started a long time ago, not tonight. Same with the husband - which I had quickly figured was the killer because if her son is that whacked.... it came from somewhere. Yup, the hubby has either had enough of his wife's fame or he's just a whack job who likes this serial killer schtick.
And slowly it continues, with bad music, kids who even on the dance floor attempting to act like they're moshing look totally bored, and Blaze getting more worried as each murder is found. Why? She'll just be that much more famous, right? If she doesn't get killed that is.
Hubby manages to get into the sealed hotel (DUH) and reveals himself as the killer. About to be caught he prefers to don a ridiculous mask and jump off the roof, doing one of those non-splats on the pavement - you know, where there's very little blood and the body looks like he just tripped or something. The son, somehow getting to the body before the police cordon the whole thing off grabs the mask. Blaze, who did get injured in a real yawn of a scene with an elevator shaft is packed into an ambulance - driven by the son who now wears the mask and of course they hope will star in a sequel. Keep dreaming.
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