Happy New Year flapjacks! So I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been slacking of late, but my New Year’s resolution to all of you is to produce content more consistently and, hopefully, more often. We have a lot of great projects planned this year at the International House of Horror and we are looking forward to providing you with plenty of great horror reviews! Now if only Delores would clean up her act and provide me with some quality service. She was supposed to refill my Pepsi two hours ago! Geez, maybe J-Bones’ resolution should be to higher some better help. Or maybe to renovate this dump. The décor in here looks like it’s from 1959. For crying out loud, the gas station just finished its remodel and looks like the Ritz in comparison. Scary Perry is spending way too much time there doing lord knows what. No wonder we can’t get any work done.
Anyways, speaking of being stuck in 1959, the first Short Stack to ring in the New Year is Bloody New Year, (aka Time Warp Terror or Horror Hotel) directed by Norman J. Warren. The film opens on New Year’s Eve, 1959, with a party in a ballroom. After the rest of the party goers leave, one woman stays behind and checks herself in front of a full-sized mirror. (Please tell me I didn’t start watching Mirror Mirror by mistake again.) But her reflection grabs her and pulls her through the mirror to the other side, and we’re already off to the races with the batshit insanity that this movie has to offer.
How many times does Karen Black have to tell you not to star in mediocre horror movies? I mean, to stay away from antique mirrors. (For how much I joke about it, Mirror Mirror is okay. But I can't let a good running gag go to waste.)
But we’ll have to put the ridiculous nonsense on hold for a while as we jump to present day 1987. We meet our main cast of characters, a bunch of British teens or twenty-somethings, or more likely and continuing with horror casting tradition, thirty-somethings pretending to be younger characters. They are having fun at a carnival, but a bunch of carnies are harassing an American woman on one of the rides, so our gang rescues her, and a zany chase ensues through the fairgrounds. They even try to shake them by sneaking through one of those horror cart rides. It reminds me a lot of The Devil’s Den from Conneaut Lake Park that I’ve ridden many times in my youth. Ah, the nostalgia.
Carnies: the most terrifying horror villain.
Anyways, the six of them eventually ditch the carnies and head out for a cruise on their boat. Unfortunately, they manage to run the keel over some protruding rocks, and with the vessel taking on water they bail and are now stuck on an abandoned island with a hotel. And hey, wouldn’t you know it, it’s the same hotel from the beginning. As the group explore their new surroundings, with some of them getting frisky, weird things start to happen, like maids and a band appear only to disappear, a set of billiard balls magically rerack themselves, vacuums run themselves, and a military pilot is seen passing by windows and bushes.
However, that’s just the start of their troubles, as an old TV broadcast dumps some exposition about an airplane experiment, and it turns out it went horribly wrong and the island is frozen in time and our gang time warped (again?) back to New Year’s 1959/60. Does that explain any of the supernatural activity that’s been happening so far or that is about to occur? Nope! Eh, maybe the inhabitants of the time warped island hotel are ghosts now and haunt the place? Yeah, it sounds like there’s a lot going on here, but there’s not. Narrative isn’t exactly this film’s strongpoint.
We then kick the insanity into high gear as the movie goes off the rails on the Terror Train when one of the group is murdered by a man who jumps out of a movie, and then proceeds to jump back in. The remaining survivors pull a Scooby Doo and split up so they can all start to be picked off, but unbeknownst to them the carnies from earlier have followed them to the island to exact their revenge, i.e.: add to the kill count. To make matters worse, their deceased friends become possessed like Evil Dead and attack them and the carnies. Will any of the gang manage to survive and make it off the island?
Back-to-back Short Stacks of Evil Dead clones with Mirror Mirror jokes? We are starting the New Year off right!
Yep, this is another Evil Dead rip off, and there’s even a POV unseen force chase scene too. (They’re being chased by a laugh track?) But it also mashes together haunted house and ghost troupes into it as well. I’ve read others compare it to Fulci’s The Beyond, and I can definitely see the comparison as little makes sense and the scientific explanation for the phenomena really only explains why the holiday decorations are up in the middle of summer.
Still, this is a fun and silly 80s supernatural horror film. The acting is mediocre, which is to be expected of low budget trash, but I love all the simple spooky effects with objects moving on their own. And while there are definitely some cheesy effects, they have a certain charm to them and are quite entertaining. I especially love when a girl sits by a green felt covered table, only for a felt covered man creature to burst out from the table and attack her. They do a similar effect with a girl trapped in an elevator and the wall bursts out and grabs her and slowly pulls her into the elevator wall. It’s awesome. It’s stuff (not to be confused with The Stuff) like this that earns this film another half of a pancake than it probably deserves.
Looks like someone is getting shafted. (I will never get tired of bad puns or the stretchy wall gag.)
Granted, it takes a while for Bloody New Year to get going, but once it does it’s a hilarious 80s cheese fest. Sure, the film’s all over the place and a mashup of several different types of horror subgenres, but that helps work in its favor and delivers a wild ride. This Short Stack is definitely not high cinema and isn’t smothered in syrup, but it will satiate your appetite for wacky and crazy 80s horror. It’s not the best horror movie to have a New Year’s theme or backdrop, but it’s worthy of being played in a marathon with the likes of Terror Train or New Year’s Evil.
On a final note, the score is solid, but I’d like to highlight the tracks in the movie from a band called Cry No More. I’ve seen a lot of people bash it, but I love quirky music like this from films. I’d love to play this and the rest of my favorite movie soundtracks on the jukebox here, but the jukebox hasn’t worked in ages. Geez, this place really does need some work. I think I better take off before J-Bones tries to shake me down for my Patreon funds to fund the remodel of the International House of Horror diner. I need that hard earned money of yours for the bum fights… that I definitely do not organize or place bets on. I’ll catch you next time flapjacks. Here’s to a New Year full of exciting new podcast episodes, Short Stacks, and much more!
Overall Rating: 3 Pancakes
