NEW YEARS EVIL - You'll have to forgive me, sometimes I hit on the wrong seasonal holiday. 'New Years Evil' is a film I've seen maybe once before and thought was no more than OK - thank goodness for second chances, had a total blast with it this time. To be fair, it delivers less as a slasher movie (light on violence and threat atmospherics) and way more as a Cannon movie (heavy on rampant silliness and unlikely incident). It's about an LA 'New Wave' TV show host who, on new year's eve, is stalked over the phone by a killer who promises one death per US time zone at the stroke of midnight; any one of the male creeps in her life could be a suspect (including her own son, who worries us when he pulls a red stocking over his head and ends up looking more like a dick than a menace). I like any movie that features live band performances from the early eighties, but the almost certainly middle-aged makers and / or backers were a bit tone deaf about punk - most of the line-ups sound like mildly revved hard-rock, so don't get into it expecting to see any Black Flag or whatever. This obtuseness extends to the overall tone, which works if you enjoy yo-yoing between hilarity and intensity; for every ugly-minded kill, there's some arcane ludicrousness involving a piece of playground equipment and a corpse. I can think of films that are more 'Cannon' than 'New Year's Evil', but its barrelling pace and breezy use of nonsense make it a safe bet for ninety mins of cheap thrills.
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