Much like how Christmas cheer largely overshadows New Year’s celebrations, so too do their cinematic counterparts. While there’s an abundance of Christmas horror films to fill the entire holiday season, New Year’s Eve horror is considerably more scarce. Bloody New Year (known in some territories as Horror Hotel and Timewarp Terror) is one of the rare titles, which was released in 1987 but has been hard to track down on DVD prior to Vinegar Syndrome’s new release.
The British horror film showcases strong production value early on. A group of six teens are introduced while having fun and getting into some trouble with locals at a fair. After sinking a sailboat, the friends find themselves stranded on an island off the coast of Wales. They happen upon an ostensibly abandoned hotel, where the remainder of the film is set. They soon learn that it’s not uninhabited; it’s haunted.