Everything Action Theater: New Year’s Evil

As we close out 2023, it’s the perfect time for some Cannon craziness with the 1980 slasher movie New Year’s Evil.  One of the earlier releases from Cannon under the reign of Golan & Globus, New Year’s Evil is set on New Year’s Eve and stars Roz Kelly as Diane “Blaze” Sullivan, a punk rock DJ hosting a party in Hollywood.  She starts getting calls from a creepy stranger calling himself Evil, who claims he will kill a new person as midnight strikes in each time zone of the US.  Believing him to be a wacky kook at first, Diane learns that he’s serious and that she is on the hit list.  The movie didn’t receive positive reviews upon its release in 1980 but it has grown into a cult classic by horror and Cannon fans, with screenings at Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema in 2018, appearing as an episode of Elvira’s Movie Macabre and getting a Blu-ray from Shout! Factory in 2015.  You can watch the entire movie below, thanks to YouTube.