NEW YEAR'S EVIL
1982, Paragon Video.

DIRECTOR: Emmett Alston  
PRODUCER: Menahem Golan and Yorum Globus  

STARRING:  Roz Kelley,   Kip Niven,   Chris Wallace   Grant Cramer,   Louisa Moritz,   Jed Mills,   Taaffe O'Connell.		   

It's New Year's Eve in Los Angeles, what are YOU doing?   Well, if you're Dianne Sullivan, also known as "Blaze" you're hosting the hottest ticket in town: the K-ROCK FM Hollywood Hot Line call-in show countdown of the hippest New Wave music of the year!!   It's gonna be a big deal, counting down to New Year's in all four time zones while live new-wave bands play.

Blaze is on top of the world, getting ready for her big show, but she DOES have a few problems:   Her drunken husband isn't going to be there to support her, her approval-craving adult son, Derek, is being particularly creepy, and her publicist is missing.   But those are small matters, what Blaze is really concerned about is getting the ratings for tonight!

But right as the show begins, Blaze's troubles get exponentially worse.   Some wacko with a creepy, metallic voice calling himself "Evil" calls in and tells Blaze his New Year's resolution:   He is going to commit murder when the clock strikes midnight in each of the time zones!   And even worse, he says he is going to kill someone she knows, someone close to her!   Naturally this freaks Blaze out, and she demands extra police protection.

Meanwhile, "Evil" has sneaked into a mental asylum dressed as an orderly and slashes up a slutty nurse at midnight.   He tape records the murder, and plays it back to Blaze when he calls again.   And in the midst of all this, Derek is getting really freaked out up in the hotel room, talking to himself, putting a pair of his Mom's red pantyhose over his head (ewwwwww!) Devo-style, and sticking a pin through his ear.

The police determine that "Evil"'s on-air tape was, in fact, really murder.   As the body count rises, someone realizes that "Evil" is making is way toward the hotel where the count down show is being broadcast, and suspect he intends to kill Blaze herself!   So they seal off the hotel and tell anyone who leaves the hall that they will not be admitted back in.

Blaze goes back up to her room to change before midnight Los Angeles time, and while she's there she's accosted by a mask-wearing man, who removes said mask to reveal he's none other than "Evil" himself!   But Blaze isn't concerned, because he's also Richard, her husband -- she doesn't know he's "Evil".   A police officer wants to know how he got into Blaze's room, since they sealed off the hotel.   Richard/Evil replies that "Blaze's agent okayed it."

Eventually, the police figure out that Richard is indeed the "Evil" who's been killing people across the city.   Unfortunately by that time, he's already put his plot into action to kill Blaze.    In the "soul baring" scene, Richard explains to her that she's been far too concerned with her career, to the detriment of him and his son.   She's castrated him (figuratively speaking), and he won't allow her to do that to their son.   He also says that she's a lady (duh!) and that "ladies are not nice people", that they are manipulative, deceitful, immoral and selfish, blah-blah-blah.   He rigs up an elaborate method of killing Blaze, but as usual with elaborate plans, it is foiled.

The police chase Richard onto the roof, where he puts his mask back on, recites lines from "Hamlet" and takes a swan dive over the edge.   Blaze's son sees his Dad and, with tears in his eyes, removes the mask and strokes his face lovingly.   Then he gets a strangely determined look in his eyes.

The next scene shows Blaze being carried through the building on a stretcher while onlookers gasp in concern.   She is loaded into an ambulance and the doors are slammed shut;   then the camera pans to the driver's compartment where you see the driver crumpled in the floor board of the passenger side.   Derek, with Daddy's mask on, is driving the ambulance toward revenge!

RATING:   

NEW YEAR'S EVIL started out quite promising;  A slasher film set on New Year's Eve with a sleazy feel to it.   Unfortunately the shooting year was 1981 -- close to all those dreadful movie-of-the-week things and police shows that were so very popular in the '70's.   So the slasher met the movie-of-the-week, and the slasher lost. Too bad.

A young lady bares her breasts for her boyfriend at a drive-in.

SCENES THAT MAKE ME GO "HMMM...,":

1. The killer dons different disguises before each murder.   There's no apparent reason for this, since he doesn't alter his appearance enough to notably change the way he looks (in case of eye witnesses) nor enough to disguise his identity should he run into anyone he knows.   So -- why?

2. Richard mugs a cop so he can steal his uniform and disguise himself as a cop to get into the hotel.   Naturally, the uniform fits Richard perfectly.

3. Richard tells the police officer that Blaze/Dianne's agent "okayed" his coming into the hotel, but the police officer is still suspicious.    He asks the agent if he okayed it, and naturally he said he didn't, thereby alerting the police and foiling his plans.   WHY wouldn't he just have said he came into the hotel earlier and hid as a surprise for his wife?

DID YOU KNOW...,:

 -   Roz Kelly (Blaze) also played Fonzie's singing girlfriend, Pinky Tuscadero, on "Happy Days".

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