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| 'My resolution? To make you never want to watch this movie a second time.' |
One of my goals for this year is to
watch the selected films for the podcast and the blog in
chronological order. It will be challenging as some of the Cannon
films had international releases before their US releases and vice
versa, but the reason for this is that we want to see the rise and
fall of Cannon as it happened. It would be easy to just bounce around
and cherry pick all the big films and have a very specific, and yet
very flawed, sample size. Yes, the goal of making this The Year of
Cannon is to have fun and see the beautiful wreck that was Golan and
Globus, but it isn't one meant to specifically tear down every film
as a 'bad movie.' We have learned with our Year of the Knock Off that
there are sometimes gold in them thar hills, and we hope that maybe
this journey into Cannon (specifically the 1980's releases) will give
us an appreciation of what the Go Go Boys tried to do.
So far we have dipped our toes into theweird glittery waters of The Apple and did not come away hating the
film, but wishing there was more coherence with the plot and
characters. I had a small glimmer of hope that the film I am covering
for the blog, New Year's Evil, being a slasher film, would be able to
at least follow the path that the likes of Halloween and Friday The
13th had already had laid down.
Does New Year's Evil help ring in The
Year of Cannon properly or does it make me already wish for 2020?
New Year's Evil starts off,
appropriately, on New Year's Eve. We meet Diane 'Blaze' Sullivan (Roz
Kelly) getting ready for her live radio/music show, Hollywood
Hotline. Her husband isn't there because he is off at some club
getting coked up and Blaze is somewhat indifferent about this. I
don't know if that was the vibe of LA in the 1980's or that the
script really didn't care. We swiftly move to Blaze's assistant
getting murdered in her bathroom because you need one murder before
the credits can start.
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| And this is happening at LA's hottest nightspot: The Holiday Inn! |
We then follow an overcrowded
convertible full of punk looking kids making their way down some busy
stretch of road in LA. They have their radio blaring a song called
'New Year's Evil' (a little on the nose, but also kind of catchy)
while they are on their way to the Hollywood Hotline show. They do
terrible things like yell at people, spit on cars, and overact. You
know, the usual. From the way the film stayed with this crowd of 35
year old looking teens who love their rock and roll, I thought that
some of them would be actual characters in the film (aka murder
fodder for the killer), but no, they are shown at points during the
Hollywood Hotline show, but there is no real payoff. Maybe the film's
goal was to murder all the subplots that would never make it out
alive?
The story moves back to Blaze's son,
Derek (Grant Cramer), stopping by her dressing room and trying to
tell her that he got a part in a TV series. Blaze, more worried about
her goings on and the show starting soon, doesn't really pay
attention to him. That's okay, I really didn't want to pay attention
to him either because he was kind of a wiener.
Blaze kicks off her New Year's edition
of Hollywood Hotline, called 'New Year's Evil' (yeah, the movie
doesn't care that everything is called New Year's Evil) by stating
that they are going to be live for four hours, counting down the new year as it
hits in New York, Chicago, Aspen (an odd choice, but it was good enough for Harry and Lloyd), and then LA. They will take phone call
votes all night for the top songs of the year. People are expected to
dance for four hours straight to live rock (sorry, new wave!) music.
I don't think this was a well thought out plan.
The second phone call that Blaze gets
is from a mysterious man who is using a voice modulator (more on that
later) who calls himself 'Evil' (see? I wasn't wrong about how little
this film cares about its details) and he tells her that is going to
kill someone she knows at midnight. Blaze, in a rare smart move
during the 85 minutes run time of the movie, hangs up and moves on.
She introduces the band Shadow to play their hit song 'New Year's
Evil.' The same one we just heard during the credits. I was beginning
to suspect that we may not get a lot of 'new wave' music variety that
this film was promising, but just the same wave over and over again
called New's Year Evil.
We follow Evil as he goes to find his
first victim. He dresses up as a nurse to gain access to a mental
hospital. Evidently the hospital is okay with having their patients
up later at night to watch the Hollywood Hotline show with little to
no supervision. In what I thought for a moment was the film trying to
make some kind of social commentary, they have near back to back
moments of showing
the people at the Hotline show
'dancing' and then the patients at the hospital 'dancing':
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
I honestly don't know and maybe I am
giving the film too much credit but I will say it tried to make a
joke.
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| Barely. |
The film then focuses on Evil as he
gets his kills at the stroke of midnight for each of the time zones.
The first one, in the mental hospital, goes according to his plan,
with him killing a nurse and recording the sound of it on his
portable tape recorder so that he can play it back for Blaze to hear
when he calls in again. 'Wait, I thought he told her that he was
going to kill people close to her?' you are going to say to me. I
will answer yes, Evil did specifically say that. However, Blaze
doesn't know the nurse. At all.
Evil moves onto his second victim, he
needs to change his outfit and puts on a fake mustache (Why the
mustache? That's the true mystery of this film), and heads to a bar
to pick up a random girl. He doesn't have the victim pre-selected,
which in hindsight seems like a poor plan for a killer who is
promising to kill people at the top of the hour for four straight
hours, and finds a woman who is bored at the bar and is easily
convinced to follow him out to his car. He claims to work with some
big Hollywood actor types and that they are having a party that he is
going to and she can come with him. What actor do you think is the
big draw of 1980 that would make any lady get into a stranger's car?
Burt Reynolds? Clint Eastwood? Sylvester Stallone?
...how about Erik Estrada?
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| I have to give you a ticket for dat ass. |
She is hella impressed and will go away
with weird mustache man. She has one caveat though, she is going to
bring her girl friend along because she can't just get into some
stranger's car alone (though she was already promised some sweet
sweet Estrada). Frustrated, Evil allows the friend to come along but
he has a scheduled murder to get to. He manages to get one to go into
a liquor store while he quickly kills the other and leaves a trail of
shoes and clothing to a dumpster.
Oh, just so we are keeping count, that
is three people that have been killed by Evil that Blaze did not
know.
Meanwhile, back at the Holiday Inn (of
dooom!) wiener Derek is having some kind of mental break while
talking into a mirror about his mother and putting on some kind of
red mesh over his face.
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| For when you need to rob a bank and go to prom alone. |
It's almost like the film is trying to
set Derek up as a red (mesh) herring but forgets that we keep seeing
Evil's face and they are two different people.
Evil has moved onto time zone number 3,
yay Aspen!, and has changed his clothes again (but not his car). He
is now dressed like a priest and is scoping out his next victim when
the film takes an odd turn, even for itself. He accidentally gets
tangled up with a motorcycle gang after inadvertently striking one
their bikes. They give chase and he hides his ride in a drive in
movie theater that is showing a horror movie marathon on New Year's
Eve. Surprisingly, this marathon was not called New Year's Evil. Evil
ditches his car, while still dressed as a priest, and forces his way
into a vehicle with a couple making out in the backseat. He kicks the
guy out and drives the girl to a park in the middle of the night and
she tries to escape. While stalking her, some police show up because
Evil had almost run over two drunk party goers along the way, and
scare him off. So Aspen gets to celebrate with no murder having
happened.
The police then decide to close off
entrance to the Hollywood Hotline show as they now believe (for no
real reason) that the killer is going to come for Blaze. Evil arrives
to the hotel and promptly gets into the building by tricking a cop
into walking into a dark area of the parking garage and killing them
and taking their uniform.
Blaze, needing a break from her own
show (which I can't blamer, I needed to take a break from this film
too), heads to her room with a cop waiting outside for her at the
door. Once inside, wiener boy Derek is there being a wiener and said
he had a surprise for her but decides to storm out of the room. Once
alone, a masked figure approaches Blaze. Its Evil! She turns, scared,
and he takes off his mask. She is relieved because its her husband,
Richard Sullivan (Kip Niven).
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| Everyone's favorite slasher: the casual wear Butler. |
So Evil has been her husband this
entire time?! Its a twist that makes no sense. The cops find his car
at the drive in, which was actually his car and not a stolen one like
a smart killer would have done, and they find out that he was once a
patient at the mental hospital where killed the nurse. None of his
victim choices, save the assistant at the start of the film, are tied
to Blaze whatsoever.
We soon then learn his true
motivation: he hates all women. Oh, and he had to beg for his
allowance from Blaze every week. Evidently he was a trophy husband
and was fine with it until he wasn't. Blaze must be rolling in the
dough for hosting a once a week music countdown show as this was
right before MTV launched (eight months before to be exact), so maybe
there was an in demand market for that. So he is going to kill Blaze
at midnight, to start the year off right, and then take his wiener
boy Derek to the Rose Bowl college football game. All in all, a great
plan.
Evil decides to handcuff Blaze to the
bottom of an elevator car and take her all the way up (hanging from
her wrists, so that had to hurt) and then all the way down and kill
her. The cops show up just in time to ruin that plan and chase him to
the roof, where he quote's Shakespeare and jumps to his death.
Blaze, safe, ends up in ambulance that
is now being driven by her wiener boy son, Derek! He is now wearing
the weird mask that his dad wore for a scene. He drives off into the
night just as the new year kicks off in Hawaii (which is stated over
the radio in the ambulance for no apparent reason as the broadcast
was not Blaze's show).
Guess which song plays over the end
credits?
I know I said at the start of this post
that our goal was not to watch these films with the goal to tear them
down but to try and face each one straight on with out judgment,
however, New Year's Evil never once rose above being a complete train
wreck of plot and and confused motivations for me to try and see any
redeeming qualities in it. I am not saying that a slasher film as a
concept can't be done well and have depth because it certainly can,
but even if you strip the lowest of aspirations away, you should
still be able to get the basic formula right. It feels like the
writer and director of this film both were told what a slasher film
is and then they had to run off and make it with only what they
remembered from that initial conversation. It would be like if I was
on one of those TV cooking shows and someone told me to make a
souffle from scratch with very specific ingredients and instructions
but they would only tell me once and then send me running to the
kitchen and pantry and expect passable results. I am sure I would
have something that in front of the judges at the end that I believed
was my best attempt at a souffle, but I wouldn't be able to speak to
flavor or construction of the piece. I would just hope that I didn't
screw up worse than another contestant that was told to make a Baked
Alaska/Romantic Comedy.
I think a behind scenes story that Kip
Niven aka Evil told the people making the special features for the
Shout Factory blu-ray release of New Year's Evil pretty much sums up
how I feel about the film. He stated that they were supposed to use a
device to make his voice more electronic sounding and more menacing,
something like an electrolarynx, but that it was broken and didn't
work. So instead of thinking of anything else at all to replace that
idea, Kip just made a weird voice and put the device in his mouth
during filming and the director was fine with it. In one way, I can
appreciate the on the fly decision making when you don't have the
time and budget, but in another way, it feels lazy and not thought
out, which is how most of New Year's Evil comes across. If this film
was playing in the background of a party, you would think you are
just seeing a slasher film like all the others, but if you take a
second or two to focus on it, it soon unravels unnecessarily.
New Year's Evil had one job to do, have
a killer make convoluted murders tied to a holiday and not reveal
their motivation till the final showdown with the lead character, and
couldn't do it. It should have just stayed at home and went to be
early before the ball dropped, like the rest of us who can't get our
shit together from year to year.
Parting Cannon Shots:
Is this better or worse than The Apple?
As we did this last year when discussing if a knock off film was better or worse than Ator The Fighting Eagle, The Apple seems like a pretty good middle ground for a film that wasn't good at all but had some redeeming qualities. New Year's Evil is worse than than The Apple. The Apple is a flawed film but it did come closer to what a musical is supposed to be as opposed to how far afield this film was from what a slasher is supposed to be. Weirdly enough though, both do have a lot of music performances in each and The Apple comes out better in that regard, too (marginally so, but credit where credit is due).
The Menahem Index: 40%
On a scale of 0-100, we attempt to rate how much this film feels in line with the crazy go-go energy and the batshit don't give a flying f*ck what others think that Menahem Golan has with the films he produces and directs. Though he did produce this, it doesn't feel like something he closely oversaw. That is just my personal opinion, so please take it with a grain of salt. The inclusion of 'new wave' music feels like something he would crowbar in trying to appeal to weird specific audience but the rest of it isn't crazy, just badly done. From what little we have learned about him and his cousin Yoram Globus so far, New Year's Evil is missing that pure unbridled sledgehammer ambition that will come into play in the later Cannon films.
Would I recommend this film to anyone?
No. Nope. No. There are plenty of better films to spend your time with. There are plenty of worse films that at least try to do something to spend your time with. There are plenty of sandwiches to spend your time with.
Bonus:
If you have run out of better films, worse films, and sandwiches, the film is on YouTube in its entirety to watch. Buyer beware:
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