‘Bloody New Year’ is more like a fairground ride than a film: it’s cheap; it’s tacky; held together with bits of string and glue – but it’s fun, and it’s funny and you just need to give into it and enjoy yourself. Oh, and keep your hands inside the car.
When a group of very old teenage holiday makers are shipwrecked on a seemingly deserted island, they take refuge in an eerie hotel decorated as if it were Christmas. Unfortunately for them it turns out that the island was the scene of a plane crash on New Year’s Eve in 1959 and that the plane was talking part in a time travelling experiment. As you might expect, this has turned the island into an outlandish time warped hell hole where all visitors are killed by a variety of deadly apparitions, including fishing nets, disfigured ghosts, murderous silver screen sheiks, bannister knobs, tinsel and rough chain wielding psychos from the Butlins at nearby Barry Island.
It’s bizarre, frankly, and bears no logical examination whatsoever, but it’s a real hoot. The main issue for me is a very personal one: it’s too eighties. But then it would be, wouldn’t it, having been made in 1987. I remember that era well and despised the stonewashed denim and mullets look then, so it’s occasionally painful for me to look at now, but others may well get a kick out of it rather than a cringe.
‘Bloody New Year’ is wrong on so many levels, and by no means showcases director Norman J. Warren’s unique talents or prove a suitable swansong (he hasn't directed since), but it’s incredibly imaginative for a film that clearly cost about sixty quid, and is enormously good fun, which is what it’s all about, really, isn’t it?
Happy New Year to all our readers!
Happy new year to you, too, Herr Doktor. Your quality writing is one of the best-kept secrets on the web with a good balance of topical variety, insight, and engaging style. May your new year have plenty of Caroline Munro moments...but mind the oncoming treads.
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