Tag Archives: slasher

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: New Year’s Evil (1980)

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Back in the 1990s, I appeared on a radio show to promote one of the low budget film projects that I was working on at that time. The host asked me if I had seen any good movies lately. For some reason, this question threw me. It’s always a little tricky to think of a good answer to an unexpected question when you’re put on the spot during a live interview. However, I watch at least one movie a day, so surely it should have been easy for me to rattle off a list of seven or ten titles just from the past week. But perhaps it was the inclusion of the word “good” that made me hesitate, and see nothing but visions of dust and tumbleweeds where the memory of my recently watched pile of movies should have been.

The last thing anyone wants on the radio is dead air, so I immediately started to answer the question with some sort of awkward stammering about how it all depended upon a person’s definition of “good”. Thankfully, as I was speaking, one recently watched movie came back to me.

“I just saw New Year’s Evil,” I told him.

The host looked puzzled. “New Year’s Evil…?”

“It’s not a recent movie,” I explained. “It’s an old slasher film from the ’80s. Made after Halloween, so they named it after a holiday – or at least a day in the calendar. Like Friday the 13th or My Bloody Valentine.”

“I haven’t seen it,” the host admitted, “but I know which movie you’re talking about.” He was roughly my age, and a huge fan of ’80s movies, so it wasn’t surprising that he would have heard of it.

“As you know, I’m a fan of slasher films,” I continued, “but I had never seen this one either. Maybe because the books all said it was bad.”

“And was it?” he asked me.

“I actually liked it,” I said, and I’m not sure which one of us was more surprised by that answer.

Truth be told, my expectations for New Year’s Evil (1980) had been pretty low. My most trusted review book, Terror On Tape by James O’Neill, gave the movie one and a half stars and called it “A less than great throwback to those bygone days when no holiday was safe from the makers of mad slasher movies… With bad music, little blood, and a predictable twist ending…” In Video Trash and Treasures, L.A. Morse says “I think there are more music/dance interludes than bodies in this one, which probably says it all…”. I actively avoided watching this movie for the better part of two decades. It was only when I found an old VHS tape in a bargain bin that I decided it was time to finally see what it was all about.

I certainly did not expect to discuss this movie on a live radio show about FIlm.

It was true that I had enjoyed New Year’s Evil much more than I had expected to – perhaps largely due to the very low expectations that I had developed over the years. Most reviewers criticized the film for it’s extensive use of rock band performance footage – and often called the music bad. I actually enjoyed that aspect of the film. It’s about a big New Years Eve rock show. They call it a “punk rock” show, but the music seems to be more straight up hard rock or classic rock. We do see bands performing several times throughout the movie.

I have a particular fondness for movies about rock bands. This Is Spinal Tap (1984) is a favourite of mine from way back – and it is, in way, about “bad music”, although my friends and I all bought the soundtrack and loved it. I am also a huge fan of the heavy metal horror films like Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare (1987), Black Roses (1988) and Rocktober Blood (1984). New Year’s Evil is not really like those movies. It’s not a story about the band(s), or in which the members of the bands are characters. In fact, the bands in New Year’s Evil are actually real bands. This makes it, in some ways, closer to movies like The Prowler (1981) which features a band performing on stage. But New Year’s Evil features so much music – and a flamboyant rockstar-like celebrity host played by Roz Kelly (who some might remember as Pinky Tuscadero on Happy Days (1974-84)) – that it takes on a bit of that rock band horror movie feel. And call me crazy, but I like the music featured in the film – you can hear the theme song by Shadow on YouTube.

So, I wasn’t lying to the radio host when I said that I had liked New Year’s Evil, but I think it was a fairly mild like after that first viewing. Over the years, however, I started to watch New Year’s Evil on New Years Eve (go figure), and I found my appreciation of the film growing stronger with each viewing. Kind of like a song or album that you hear once and think is okay, but after you hear it a few more times you start to really get into it. Those are some of favourite songs/albums. After wearing out my VHS tape, I upgraded to the Scream Factory Blu-ray and I couldn’t be happier. The film has never looked (and sounded) better, and it’s nice to have a few extras to enhance the experience.

One more rock and roll reason to love New Year’s Evil (at least for me), is the fact that Nurse Robbie, whom our psychopathic killer encounters at a mental institution, is played by Jennie Franks. She has a few acting credits over a ten year period, and was apparently also a photographer and playwright. I had never noticed this before, but she also has quite a few songwriting credits on the IMDb – and they are all for one song: Aqualung by Jethro Tull. Those who know me, know that I am a huge fan of Jethro Tull, and Aqualung is one of my all time favourite albums, and songs. When I saw Jennie Franks’ soundtrack credits on the IMDb, my brain couldn’t quite comprehend them – until I remembered that Aqualung is one of the only songs in Jethro Tull’s vast catalogue that wasn’t written solely by Ian Anderson. And I had noticed, years ago, that the co-writer of Aqualung was a woman… Jennie Anderson, in fact; Ian’s first wife. Now I discover, much to my surprise, that Jennie Franks, the actress who plays the nurse who (SPOILER ALERT) gets murdered in New Year’s Evil, used to be called Jennie Anderson, and is, in fact, the very same Jennie Anderson who co-wrote one of my all time favourite songs!

What are the odds of that?

I actually always liked Jennie Franks’ portrayal of Nurse Robbie in this movie, but I had no idea who she was until this year. I suspect that all future viewings of New Year’s Evil will only be enhanced by this exciting new discovery…

Director Emmett Alston only made eight films during his relatively brief career, and by the looks of them they might all be #NotQuiteClassicCinema of one type of another. Alston seemed to be particularly partial to ninjas, having made three films about them. A year before  New Year’s Evil was released, Alston made his directorial debut with something called Three-Way Weekend (1979). It’s described on the IMDb as “Two bisexual girls go camping in the woods and are followed around by a perverted guy in a gorilla mask and a man in uniform with a whip who thinks everyone’s a communist…”. If ever a film heralded the arrival of a cinematic genius it’s got to be this one. Needless to say, I’m putting it on my must-find-a-copy-and-watch list.

 

 

For me, New Year’s Evil (1980) will always be a welcome addition to any #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn – especially if that Friday also happens to be New Years Eve, or New Year’s Day. And looking at my new 2021 calendar, I think I know what I’ll be doing next December 31…

Friday The 13th At The Home Drive-In: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

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As I mentioned in a previous post, Friday the 13th Part III (1982) was the first Friday the 13th film I ever saw. And I had the good fortune of seeing it in the threatre in 3D! It was quite a mind-blowing experience, and as is the case with many first time experiences, it would prove very difficult to top. The next one I saw was the original Friday the 13th (1980), and that movie blew my mind for very different reason, which I wrote about in another blog post. I think that the next Friday the 13th film I saw was Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984).

I was so excited when I heard that this movie was coming out – and, of course, I wanted to see it in the theatre. Sadly, it was not to  be. I don’t remember if it was because my Dad had hated Part III so much that there was no way I could convince him to take me to Part 4 (which would have undoubtedly been true) or, if it was because Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was rated ‘R’ in Manitoba. I have a vague memory that the film was indeed Restricted, which meant that no one under the age of 18 would be admitted. 

This was, on the one hand, disappointing. I had really enjoyed seeing Part III on the big screen and I would have loved seeing Part 4 on the big screen, too. But on the other hand, this kind of made me more excited. The movie was rated ‘R’ which meant that it had to be even more violent, more gory – and more scary – than the already extreme (to my inexperienced eyes) Part III!

I rented the movie on Beta as soon as it came out.

And isn’t that weird? The rules were very strict about not letting anyone under the age of 18 into the movie theatre to see a film like Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. But my friends and I would routinely take ‘R’ rated films up to the counter at our local video store and no one would bat an eye. Not once did a clerk ever question us, or ask for I.D., or say “Hey, you’re too young to be renting that!”

Those were good times.

So, I watched Part 4 with bated breath. This was The Final Chapter after all. Somehow they were going to do the impossible: they were going to kill Jason. And I thought that this was pretty darn cool. After all, Jason had already been “killed” numerous times, and he just kept getting back up. How were they going to finally finish him off?

As the movie unfolded in front of me, I found myself feeling anxious, and excited, and scared…  and disappointed.

Huh? Disappointed?! How could I be disappointed by a movie that is now considered to be one of the (if not the) very best film(s) in the entire series?

I think it was a lot of factors coming together to create that feeling of disappointment:

First of all, I saw Part III on the big screen and in 3D. It was a huge, spectacular experience. I watched Part 4 on an old 19″ TV screen – and it wasn’t in 3D.

Secondly, Part III had been my first time seeing anything so violent and gory. It had seemed to me, at the time, that an endless number of people were killed in that movie. Somehow, Part 4 seemed more restrained to me, and I actually thought it had a lower body count. I was wrong, but that was the impression I got the first time I saw it.

Expectations can be a bitch. Part III had raised my expectations through the roof. It probably wouldn’t have mattered what Part 4 was actually like, my expectations would have led me to expect MORE from it.

I suspect that if I had watched Part III again, I would have thought that it was more restrained and had a lower body count.

It should be noted that I did like Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter the first time I saw it. I just didn’t like it as much as I had expected to. 

I didn’t know it at the time, but the movie was directed by Joseph Zito, who had previously made one of my all time favourite slasher films, The Prowler (1981), which I wrote about in an unrelated blog post. Of course, I hadn’t even seen that movie yet, but it’s a high quality production and I believe that Zito brought some of that sensibility to the Friday the 13th series. – which, oddly enough, may have been one of things that threw me off the first time I saw it. 

Over the years, people would tell me that Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was their favourite film in the entire series. Eventually, I decided that I needed watch it again – and this is when I realized what a great film it was. Joseph Zito put more emphasis on character development and storytelling. The characters in this movie feel more real and are more sympathetic, than any of the characters in the previous three movies. There are more killings in The Final Chapter than there were in Part III, but I didn’t experience it that way the first time. This may have been because I was too busy watching the story, and the killings somehow weren’t as front and centre. In Part III, there had hardly been enough story to get in the way, and some of the characters seemed like they were just there to get killed, so the killings and the gore really became the main focus (at least for me at that time). 

So, it may have been the high quality nature of The Final Chapter that caused me to be disappointed in it all those years ago. Now I recognize it as possibly the best made film in the series, and I love it.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984). is not the last movie in the series. Not even close. And that made me angry for a few years, too. I had actually thought that this film would have been a fairly perfect ending for Jason Voorhees. But then again, we would have missed out on a lot of other entertaining #NotQuiteClassicCinema if the series had ended here – and I would have much fewer choices of what to watch on a #FridayThe13thAtTheHomeDriveIn. So, I guess things worked out for the best in the long run. 

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: The Prowler (1981)

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I first saw The Prowler (1981) with a couple of friends back the ’80s. We were all blown away by the Special Makeup FX by Tom Savini. We had seen The Burning (1981) and been disappointed that most of the gore had been cut out. We had also seen plenty of other slasher films with sub-par gore FX. So, The Prowler was quite a mind-blowing experience for us.

We also liked the story of The Prowler, and the mystery aspect worked for us. In other words, we did not figure out who the killer was and were legitimately surprised by the revelation. This was not so common when watching the less accomplished slasher films of the day.

Fast forward a few years, and I had become a collector of movies on VHS. They had been too expensive at first. And not that many places would even sell them. But by the ’90s there were a lot of video stores that would routinely sell used movies for a decent price. Every once in a while, I would borrow the old beat-up station wagon from my parents and my friend Brian and I would drive all over town, visiting video stores and looking for good deals on used movies.

We popped into one store that we had never visited and my friend excitedly grabbed a box from a shelf. It was VHS copy of The Prowler released by Astral Video. We had never seen a copy of the movie on sale before, and we had never seen this particular box. The price sticker said $15.00, which was a little high for a used VHS tape at that time. My friend took the box up to the counter and asked the owner if she would consider taking $10.00 for the movie. She thought about it for a minute, letting us know that this was a really difficult decision. Then she said “Ten dollars plus tax?”

My friend agreed and he went home very excited that night, with one of the holy grails of horror movie collecting (at least to us). He reported back to me that the tape was in perfect shape, and the movie was uncut, with all of Tom Savini’s beautiful gore intact. I must admit, I was a just a little bit jealous.

The next time we went out video store hopping, we came upon a second location of the store where Brian had found his cherished copy of The Prowler. We went inside and discovered a second, identical Astral Video VHS box of the movie on sale for the same price of $15.00. I did exactly what Brian had done last time, and wound up paying ten dollars plus tax for my very own copy of this slasher classic.

Later that night, when I slipped the tape into my VCR and prepared to have my mind blown all over again, I made a horrifying discovery. My copy of the The Prowler was censored – all of the gore was cut out! What the hell? I examined the box closely. It was identical to the box that Brian had purchased. Often one version would say R-rated, and the other would say Unrated. Or the listed running times would be different. There were no tell tale signs on my box that suggested it would be anything other than the complete, uncut film. I was not happy.

Brian came up with an idea: what if we put our VCRs together and copy his uncut movie onto my censored tape? It sounded like a plan to me. I was somewhat worried that the quality of my copy wouldn’t be as good, but it’s not like I was ever going to watch the censored version anyway. It was worth the risk.

Thankfully, it worked beautifully. And for years it was what I would watch whenever I had a hankering to see that film again. I eventually picked up a second VHS tape, this one by VCII. And now I have the blu-ray, which is what I watched last #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn.

The movie still works for me. Aside from the things I already mentioned, I was always impressed by the fact that it starts with a pretty convincing period sequence set in 1945 (right after World War II). They had period automobiles and everything. This is, I believe, a unique achievement in a low budget slasher filmmaking.

Many people cite their admiration for the “final girl” of this movie, and I like her, too. Pam, played by Vicky Dawson, seems to be a more active main character than many. She finds out very early on that something is wrong and she spends the rest of the film, with the help of equally likeable Deputy Sheriff Mark, trying to solve the mystery. In a lesser slasher film, her character would have simply waited around to get attacked in the final reel.

Legendary (notorious?) Hollywood actor Lawrence Tierney, who had been in films like Dillinger (1945) and Back to Bataan (1945), appears in The Prowler as Major Chatham, who seems to run the college. His part is ridiculously small, so this was clearly from the period when his name still meant something, but his career was on the skids. He made a bit of comeback later with Reservoir Dogs (1992) and an appearance on Seinfeld as Elaine’s scary father.

The Prowler (1981) will always be a special movie for me. I’m not sure how successful it was originally. It never spawned sequels or a remake. Some people don’t care for it as much as I do, and I can understand that. But it’s one of my favourite slasher films, and a piece of #NotQuiteClassicCinema that I will treasure until the day I meet a masked psychopath in an empty college dorm. I could watch it anytime, anyplace, any #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn.

Friday The 13th At The Home Drive-In: Friday the 13th Part III 3D (1982)

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As I said in a previous post, Friday the 13th Part 3 3D was my very first Friday the 13th movie. I somehow convinced my Dad to take me and friend to see it. My Dad hated it, but my friend and I thought it was great! And that was in no small part because of the 3D experience.

Friday the 13th Part 3 3D was also my very first 3D movie. Well, on the big screen, that is. As I mentioned in that previous post, I had been lucky enough to see Revenge Of The Creature (1955) in 3D on television. For those who may not remember, that was a bit of a thing back then; 3D movies being shown on TV. The first one I remember was a movie called Gorilla at Large (1954) – and it should have been the first 3D movie I ever saw! There was a big ad campaign leading up to the broadcast, urging us all to get our 3D glasses at 7-11. I remember biking over with my brother and buying a spiffy pair of cardboard glasses with red and blue lenses. On the way home, I put on the glasses and urged my brother to “do something”, expecting that the glasses would magically make whatever he did more exciting. But alas, my brother’s actions looked no more three dimensional with the glasses than without.

The unfortunate twist to this story is that my parents suddenly announced that we were heading up to the lake for our summer vacation at exactly the same time as the TV broadcast of Gorilla at Large. There was no way I would be able to watch it. I remember pleading with my parents: “But I bought 3D glasses especially so I could watch this movie! They’ll be useless if I don’t stay home and watch it.”

My Dad said the same thing that he said when I found out that I would miss the TV broadcast premiere of Prom Night (1980): “They’ll show it again.” But they never showed Prom Night again – and they certainly never showed Gorilla at Large after that first time.

When I got back to the city, my friends all told me that I didn’t miss much. “The 3D didn’t work” they all said. I didn’t know whether to believe them or not. Perhaps they were just trying to make me feel better, but it was no use. The 3D glasses I spent my hard earned allowance on were sitting on a shelf, unused for the better part of a year – and I didn’t think I would ever get to use them.

But then a miracle happened. The TV guide listed Revenge Of The Creature 3D one Saturday afternoon. There was no publicity blitz this time. Nobody telling us to buy our glasses at 7-11. I guess they assumed that we already had them – and I certainly did.

I watched the movie at a friend’s house, and I was blown away when someone in the movie threw a rope to another character and it wound up in the middle of my friend’s living room! This 3D was definitely working! And my friend told me it was so much better than Gorilla at Large had been. I still wasn’t sure if I believed him, but I was happy because my 3D glasses had not gone to waste – and the 3D experience had been even cooler than I thought it would be.

It was the same friend that came with me and my Dad to see Friday the 13th Part 3 3D a year later or so. And as I said in that previous post, it was so much more intense of a 3D experience. For us, it was the gateway to many other 3D movies, including Jaws 3-D (1983), Amityville 3-D (1983), and Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone 3D (1983).  Our absolute favourite, as far as 3D goes, was Treasure of the Four Crowns 3D (1983) – not because it was the best movie, but rather because it was an absolutely relentless 3D experience. That movie threw everything out at us. Even in a boring talking scene, people would hand each other stuff and it would hit us right between the eyes. It was amazing!

         

For some odd reason, modern 3D movies don’t seem to do this. They show us 3D landscapes, and plenty of images with depth. But they mostly seem to shy away from throwing stuff right into our faces. I seem to recall Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone 3D being that way as well – and I remember Siskel and Ebert criticizing it for that. They suggested that the filmmakers were trying to prove that they were above that sort of cheap effect; that they had more class than that. But this raises a simple question:

If you’re making a 3D movie, and you’re not throwing things out at the audience, what exactly do you think the point is?

Friday the 13th Part 3 3D is a good 3D movie. It doesn’t go completely over the top like Treasure of the Four Crowns 3D, but it throws enough stuff out at us to keep us on our toes. It was also my first Friday the 13th movie, and my introduction to Jason. It was a tough one to beat, in terms of body count and gore. Even the highly anticipated Pt 4, The Final Chapter seemed a little lightweight to me after seeing Pt 3 a couple of times. In reality it wasn’t, but that’s how it seemed to me the first time I saw it.

For years I longed to see Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3D again. It was out on VHS and Beta in 2D – and it was only ever on TV in 2D. So, I was particularly thrilled when Paramount released the remastered 3D DVD a few years back. It uses the old fashioned red and blue glasses, but that’s okay. It gave me back an important experience of my childhood, and I can confirm that it is a #NotQuiteClassicCinema favourite.

I would still love to see a a 3D Blu-ray version, but until one comes out, I will keep watching my 3D DVD. Probably about once out of every eight times I celebrate #FridayThe13thAtTheHomeDriveIn.

Friday night at the home drive-in: Watch Me When I Kill (1977)

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I have always been a fan of horror films, and slasher films in particular. I saw movies like Halloween (1978) and Terror Train (1980) when they first appeared on TV, and they made a strong impression. But it wasn’t every day that respectable TV stations would show movies like that. And I was too young to get in to see most of them in the theatre. Home video was a life-changer for a kid like me. Not only did stores like Jumbo Video have a Horror Castle (which was a room filled with hundreds of horror films on VHS and Beta), the clerks who worked in those stores never stopped me or my friends from renting R-rated movies when we were 12 or 13. Continue reading →

Friday the 13th at the home drive in: The original Friday the 13th (1980)

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I remember seeing the poster for Friday the 13th at a movie theatre and thinking it looked scary. Too scary. I had always enjoyed watching scary movies, but something about this poster made me wonder if I should stay away. Fortunately, I was too young to buy a ticket anyway. Continue reading →