Review by Chris Wright for MoreHorror.com

It’s a “Bloody New Year” especially for five teens. This movie has gone "lost in translation" since its release in 1987 from Academy Home Entertainment, a company from 1985 to 1995. It’s not well known and many don’t know it exists. Profoundly, this UK horror movie isn’t that bad for a forgotten gem. Coined by many as “The Shining meets the Evil Dead” and after viewing it myself, the overtones are present.

A small synopsis for this movie would be: Five UK teens want to have fun and get on a boat that lands them on an Island with a mysterious house which is decorated for New Years Day. But it’s not your ordinary party, strange happenings and spirits seem to be out to kill them.

The movie starts off rather "hokey", with a very 80s theme song that doesn’t remotely resemble a horror themed song. It was cheese as its finest. We find our typical 80s young adults having fun in an amusement park and none of the actors are well known, which isn’t a bad thing in horror. They seemingly want to have more fun and finish with their amusement and head off to the shoreline. The group is adventurous and board a boat that launches in the direction of a deserted island with a mysteriously large house that awaits them. We’ve somewhat heard this before haven’t we? In the Evil Dead, random teens head to a deserted cabin in an isolated location. Different locale but same plot devices.

After a slow start to this low budget movie, the film picks up pace in the middle with some fairly amusing moments. The young adults enter the hotel and strange things begin to occur after they notice how well the house is decorated along with its “fresh” not old style decor. Up to this point, the title is somewhat deceiving as the movie viewer is lead to believe that this is an 80s slasher movie...far from it. It’s a supernatural horror movie. Hmm, where have we heard that before? Isolated locale with supernatural occurrences, oh that’s right Kubrick’s “The Shining.”

Profoundly, this movie is pretty entertaining at this point. With a mix of bad acting, this low budget movie at least produces some pretty amusing special affects (to its credit). It’s an amusing free for all at this point! One girl opens a door and a snow blizzard blasts her in the face. A couple flee to a bedroom and a possessed table top cover comes to life and attacks them. Spirits from ghosts to monsters who look alive to downright Evil Dead style creatures magically becoming possessed and attack everybody. Ghosts in the woods come to life and chasing the victims. The list is endless! This is the majority of the movie and thank God it is otherwise this would be a boring flick!

The flick concludes with no hope for the characters. The ones already there were victims to the hotel as well as the five that crash landed there. Even though not directly stated, this was supposedly a government conspiracy experiment that trapped inhabitants in a time to Dec 31st 1959.

This movie is not for everybody but I recommend it. It’s cheap, its cheesy, its low budget but surprisingly this cult movie director did a good job entertaining me. I give the movie 4 out of 5 stars as I thought it did well for what it had to work with. It has a 4.2 on IMDB. Highly recommended! This director is known for low budget over the top random non sense movies so this isn’t too bad.

Directed by: Norman J. Warren (“Terror”, “Satan’s Slave”). Written by: Frazier Pearce, Bloody New Year is available on VHS through Academy Home Entertainment in the 80s. This film was given a DVD release in 2004 from Image Entertainment but it’s a full screen transfer. Both copies are well out of print.

Bloody New Year Trailer