There’s not a lot of horror movies set around New Year’s Eve; Christmas hogs the spotlight in terms of holiday horror. It’s almost a shame, too, since there’s a lot more freedom in the holiday since it’s not bound by specific iconography like Santa Claus, elves, snowmen, or other Christmas traditions. Even still, there are enough great titles to fill out a fun night in, ringing in the New Year in the best way – watching horror movies. The most obvious selection is 1980’s slasher New Year’s Evil, but I’m assuming you’ve already seen it and skipping it in favor of less obvious and more interesting (i.e. wackier) selections. After all, it’s New Year’s Eve and you’re probably imbibing. To help you ring in the New Year, here are five horror movies worth checking out.
Cronos
Ok. So, it’s not exactly as though the plot hinges on the holiday, but New Year’s Eve does factor into the narrative and a major scene set at a New Year’s ball. Guillermo del Toro’s feature film debut takes a unique approach to the vampire mythos in a way that only del Toro can. Antique dealer Jesús Gris (Frederico Luppi) finds a 450-year-old mechanized scarab hidden within a statue in his shop. It stings him, injecting him with a mysterious substance, and he soon finds himself growing young again. Albeit with a thirst for blood. Gris’ new-found hunger for blood creates a path of destruction, and really rears its ugly head at a New Year’s ball that he attends with his wife, when he finds a man bleeding from an injury and loses control.
Terror Train
It turns out 1980 brought two New Year’s set slashers, and Terror Train is the more entertaining of the two. It’s also the year that Jamie Lee Curtis starred in two slashers involving pranks gone wrong, as Terror Train follows a masked killer targeting six college students responsible for a botched prank as they party away at a costume party on a moving train for New Year’s. The other is Prom Night. Again, it’s the more entertaining of the two. It also helps that the killer wears the costume of his previous victim, making for a fun twist on a typical masked killer, and that the train setting is unique. Plus, Jamie Lee Curtis.
The Signal
Set over New Year’s Eve into New Year’s Day, a mysterious signal that invades radio, TV, and cell phone transmission turns anyone who hears it into rage-fueled killers. What makes The Signal so much fun and special is that it’s one cohesive story with central characters, but it’s told in three parts by three difference directors. This gives it varying tones, from serious to black comedy, and an anthology feel despite not actually being an anthology. A.J. Bowen plays Lewis, the infected husband to lead character Mya (Anessa Ramsey), who spends most of the film chasing her down as she attempts to escape him with her lover Ben (Justin Welborn). The second segment, directed by Jacob Gentry, takes the film into horror comedy as Lewis crashes a nearby New Year’s party being hosted by the infected. It’s a bloody riot. But the film works great as a whole.
The Night of the Virgin
Warning, this film exists to be polarizing. It’s a gross-out horror comedy, emphasis on gross, that follows awkward, lonely Nico (Javier Bódalo) who attends a New Year’s Eve party with the sole goal of losing his virginity. There he becomes attracted to Medea (Miriam Martín), and he follows her home in the hopes of getting laid but is regaled with stories of a Nepalese goddess Naoshi instead. Medea’s boyfriend arrives, and Nico is trapped in her apartment with the realization that perhaps Naoshi isn’t just a myth. It’s grimy, weird, gross, and gory, and will likely test your boundaries of taste. So perhaps this one is best viewed with friends while buzzed, just maybe don’t eat beforehand. It is New Year’s, after all.
End of Days
Maybe you just want to party like it’s 1999. What better way to do that than with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Schwarzenegger stars as Jericho Cane, a former cop turned alcoholic elite security officer with a crisis of faith forced to save the world when Satan comes to New York to claim his bride and have her bear his Antichrist child on New Year’s Eve. And ring in the end of the world, of course. Action horror meets apocalypse meets church conspiracy equals more fun than this movie has gotten credit for. Gabriel Byrne co-stars as Satan, and Robin Tunney as his unwitting chosen bride Christine, but who doesn’t want to see a grizzled Schwarzenegger battle cultists and monstrous iterations of Satan? It doesn’t get much more holiday appropriate than this one.
