Bloody New Year (1987)

"Suddenly, everything seems so stupid." - Janet

aka: Time Warp Terror
A group gets trapped on an island haunted by evil, or something.
Starring: Mark Powley, Nikki Brooks, Suzy Aitchison, Julian Ronnie, Catherine Roman

Link to IMDB

A group of six friends are tired of hanging-out at the carnival, so they decide to take a boat ride on the open sea. Tragedy strikes as their boat begins to sink, and the gang are forced to take refuge on a small island.
The only thing they find is a curiously empty hotel, and oddly enough it's decorated for Christmas and New Years despite it being the middle of the summer. As they explore the hotel, unexplainable things begin to occur and the gang start suspecting that the place is haunted.

The pace here is very slow but it's gradually revealing more of the island's history, and it seems the hotel was the site of a science experiment in the 1960s that went terribly wrong, and now the past has returned to haunt the present.
Eventually, the group of friends start going a bit crazy as the island's madness takes hold of them, and things really start getting bonkers when zombie-ghosts start trying to kill them all!

Zombies

The acting here is on par with a high school play, and that also reflects how much care went into the script because I didn't even know the names for half the characters.
The lack of skill ensures that no real drama or horror is being built, but it does create an accidental sense of weirdo wackiness that is oddly enjoyable in its own way. The movie is trying to use all the ingredients for an epic haunted hotel story, but it's more like a series of disjointed and underwhelming scenes that just trick you into thinking something interesting is happening.

"I see things, but I don't believe them." - Rick

The angry snow room

The last 30 minutes do get a bit more exciting, when the bizarre factor is turned up to max and the gang try to survive a hotel gone crazy, but despite some creative ghosts it's nothing too memorable. I didn't really feel like I wasted my time with this one, but I was also quite glad when the end credits finally rolled.


Be sure not to miss:
- Apparently, the fuse box was full of fireworks.
- The laughing shrubbery.
- They are watching Fiend Without a Face on TV.
- The first 10 minutes at the carnival make no sense.

Internet review:
"Delightfully incoherent weirdness." - MugwugThemagnificful

Should I watch it?
Probably not.

Where can I find it?
Here on YouTube.

Bloody New Year gets...