Bloody New Year (1987)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

A group of teenagers hang out at an amusement park, hang out on a small boat, hang out at an old abandoned hotel on an island and (yawn) are killed when it's discovered that the island is caught in a time warp. It's never explained who is killing them or why they are killed to keep them there, but that's just one of the many problems that this movie has. An interesting premise gets flushed right down the toilet in this horribly boring movie, only saved by some hit and miss special effects: effects that are sometimes clever and sometimes pathetic. The highlight of this movie though is when a guy jumps out of an old movie and attacks the guy watching him, but this is too weird and badly acted to keep your attention for very long, and the actors accents are sometimes almost unintelligible. This also has one of the worst soundtracks you'll ever hear.

Bloody New Year is a very strange British ghost story. It starts with an incredibly upbeat and silly tune that will no doubt be stuck in your head for days and then some amusement park hijynx. This goofy stuff leads you to think it's a goofy movie. It actually picks up and gets interesting when our gang of characters reach the haunted hotel. Bloody New Year is hokey at times and the acting is sub-par, even for the genre. There are some good gags featuring an elevator and a cinema that really work. There's excellent use of reverse filming as well. Quite surprisingly the hotel was not built above an Indian burial ground-it's the result of an experimental aircraft. Like I said, it's hokey, but at least it attempts to be original. It's not The Shining, but it's not all bad either. It just feels like a Scooby Doo episode.

Teenagers seek shelter in an isolated hotel that is stuck in a time warp. They then notice weird things going on and the walls moving and that is when they start seeing ghost & zombies, who first stalk then kill the kids. Not very memorable, but with a fair amount of suspense and a better then usual premise. Rated R; Nudity, Sexual Situations, Violence.

If "Terror" was Norman J Warren's take on "Suspiria", then "Bloody New Year" is surely his version of "The Beyond". After a slow start, it changes from a British teens at the seaside affair, all big dippers and frustrated love triangles, to a delirious zombie movie - "Quadrophenia" crossed with Lucio Fulci. Considering the extremely low-budget, this is a creditable piece of filmmaking, with Warren achieving some neat shock effects. The young and unknown cast acquit themselves reasonably and there is some groovy organ music to spice up the final reel mayhem. The unexpected arrival of the fairground yobs adds to the fun.I do have two questions though! Norman is such a nice man so why does he go in for ultra-downbeat endings? And is there really a time-warp island,complete with drooling zombies, living lifts and ambulatory fishing nets,within sailing distance of Barry Island Funfair? Has the local Tourist Information Centre been informed? (Wait a minute, that's three questions).