D: Emmett Alston
C: Roz Kelly, Kip Niven, Chris Wallace
Serial killer phones in a televised New Year's Eve party informing the hostess of the show that he is going to kill someone during each of the four major time zones with herself being the final victim.
The film's premise of a slasher killing victims according to time zone's is an intriguing premise. However, the film is so poorly done that it doesn't warrant the attention of those suckered in by the enticing initial concept. First off, all of the characters are rather annoying. Since the film is told, in part, through the point of view of the killer, the killer should either be seductively evil or repugnantly vile. Instead, viewers are stuck listening to a killer with a completely off putting voice that he is altering to hide his identity. The well known 1996 slasher "Scream" used this concept of a killer hiding behind an altered voice. Since the viewer is going to spend so much of the film's running time listening to this character, there should be something alluring about how the killer talks to his potential victims, instead viewers are stuck listening to this gravely voice. Then there is a lack of sympathy for the film's protagonist or the victims of New Year's Evil despite the grisly nature of the film's death sequences. So since New Year's Evil gives us an unappealing heroine, victims that lack sympathy, and the type of villain they viewers love to hate, the film gives those viewing it no one to identify with and no one to become involved with in the storyline. There is a twist ending to New Year's Evil, but having to sit through such an unappealing film to get there, it's just too little too late. Having an interesting story to work with is something, but New Year's Evil fails to create interesting characters to populate the narrative of the film's plot.
This film is available as part of Netflix's instant streaming library, otherwise the film will cost you a pretty penny to obtain.
-Brandon Sites http://bigdaddyhorrorreviews.com/
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