New Years Evil (1980)

1980 was all about a drastic change in life and society, huh? As the Ramones so elegantly^eloquently? put it in their lovely Rock and Roll Radio jingle, "It's the end of the 70s, it's the end of the century". I'll admit, I have a fondness for some Cars-esque new wave shit, and the 80s did usher in one of the best decades for horror. But for some reason, this year gave us this movie, and Terror Train, which I ranted about earlier this year https://trashepics.com/post/1/709/ . So who gives a fuck about New Years Evil? Well... I kinda do.

I probably first watched this when I was binging notable slasher movies, and as much of a genre fan as I am, they can definitely run together after a while. However, I always remembered this movie to be a bit different. This wasn't just a masked slasher in a holiday setting type of movie... this movie gave away the killer pretty quickly, and he had a whole personality to boot! This guy was a real asshole, but I can't help but think of him as our protagonist, because as the plot would have it, this guy is on a mission to kill someone on the hour, every hour, until all new years (in the United States?) have been accounted for. That's a pretty cool premise in itself, which allows for a few moments to look out for. Does it run according to plan? Does he fuck it up at some points? We'll see, wont we?

Spoilers take away all incentive to watch a movie, so give this one a whirl if you want to see the journey of a lunatic as it unfolds. Had this followed the traditional formula, I probably wouldn't have remembered it as well, and this is one of those weird clusterfuck type of slashers masquerading as some sort of deviant genre, so it may be mostly the same old shit, but it's not entirely the same old shit.

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Also, I found it interesting to see Grant Cramer in this. He played "Mike Tobacco" (the lead male) in Killer Klowns from Outer Space. This was 8 years before that movie, and he played some sort of nigh-adult with parental issues. He looked mostly the same though, which is why age can be a funny thing sometimes. In another barely related anecdote, I asked a new guy at work what is favorite movie was. He said "Interstellar", but his next movie inquiry was... Have I ever seen a movie called Killer Klowns from Outer Space?