If horror comedies are your thing, Eric Huskisson and P.J. Stark’s “New Fears Eve” might be right up your alley. While the indie film has a straight-to-video feel about it (this might even be the point given the marketing materials Starks shared with me), it offers entertainment and street cred. The film is released through Cineverse—which distributed “Terrifier 3”—and features actors Felissa Rose and Dave Sheridan, who both recently appeared in “Scary Movie 6.” “Final Destination” creator Jeffrey Reddick also co-produces, so it’s a stacked deck. But does “New Fears Eve” deliver? Surprisingly it does. Its beginning is slow and mostly a sarcasm-fest a la “The Office.” However, when the film jumps off in later acts, the gore—and story—are unexpectedly worth the effort.
The film offers a simple premise: an office New Year’s Eve party is targeted by a serial killer. That’s basically it. Of course, by this time we’ve already seen the killer, and the costuming is eerily good. He’s a tall, imposing man draped in all black, wearing a Plague Doctor mask complete with beak. He dispatches a few people in grisly fashion in broad daylight as the film opens. While this is a B-Horror slasher that deserves to be discovered, I don’t feel this is a spoiler. The kills set up the legend, with journalists detailing a killer “Still on the loose” that Writer Starks uses to set the stage for what’s to come. I gathered from the opening kills that ‘The Doctor’ isn’t truly human—he rips a man’s throat out with his hands as easily as pulling tape off a wall—but Starks wisely keeps his enigma a secret for the film’s run.
A B-Horror Bonanza
In order to get to the good stuff—the kills—viewers have to wade through roughly 30 minutes of dry comedy and irreverence from the cast. The New Year’s Eve party is a mandatory event for Hooper Industries (I’m guessing a “Jaws” homage here—the film is clever with its horror nods without feeling overstuffed). However, before the party, the firm’s CEO Mr. Dugan (Dan Sheridan, playing a real jerk) lays off multiple employees. It has an “Office Space” feel, with he and his assistant, Stephanie (“Sleepaway Camp’s” Felissa Rose) taking glee in the proceedings. It’s fairly obvious what Starks and Huskisson are doing here, but I won’t give away spoilers. Suffice to say, by the end there’ll be a lot of dead bodies and some no one will miss very much.
However, “New Fears Eve” also writes its characters well, even if some of them are nothing more than punchlines. The main cast consists of Lily-Claire Harvey, Matthew Tichenor, and Joshua Orion. IMDb buries Orion and Tichenor in the list, which is odd. Along with Harvey, they’re the high point of the movie. Tichenor particularly shines, especially toward the film’s end. He’s the loving jokester who reserves his serious side. But when he raises a weapon above his head to take a swing at the killer and gloats, “your medical license has been revoked!” I chuckled.
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Aside Tichenor and Orion, Harvey plays the film’s main star, Leslie, who likes Michael but can’t seem to get anywhere with him. Together, the three have a fun bond. The film mixes comedy and horror well and you really start to like these three. I would have liked to see what Starks and Huskisson could have done with them had the cast been smaller, as the rest of the players are mostly cannon fodder we don’t know much about. To mix up the works, the script throws in a pair of cops (Jay Woolston and Alyssa Rhoads). They seem tied to the story before the film drops this plot in favor of its enigmatic killer. There’re also two FBI officers (Sonya Delormier and Cody Webb) who find a horror show at an abandoned factory that was very “Saw”-esque.
Gore and Kills Aplenty but Mixed with Humor
While most of the kills in “New Fears Eve” are straightforward or hokey (I laughed at several of them), I liked that the directors threw some nods to “Terrifier” with a few of the kills. The film shifts away from out-and-out comedy by the middle and more towards straight horror as it reaches its close. Yet the comedy from Tichenor and Orion—and the physical, exaggerated deaths by the killer and his victims— alleviates any feeling of desperate terror. The cinematography by Alexander Clark is firm and steady. The camera brings levity to the kills (which I’m guessing are mostly practical effects).
Yet I doubt the effect Starks and Huskisson are going for is gross-out terror a la Damien Leone here. They want to bring a fun slasher to the small screen, and they mostly succeed. Along the way, the killer (Jesse McDonald inside the suit) does become scary. He has that immovability of Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees and these glowing red eyes that work so well in the dark his character is begging for big screen treatment. Maybe, like “Terrifier,” “New Fears Eve” can get there someday. It’s an imperfect film. Sometimes the tone is too sarcastic, and 15 minutes and some confusing side plotting could’ve been trimmed to strengthen it. But, at the end of the day, this is an enjoyable horror film. It’s fun, scary, and gives horror fans what they want while not creating any nightmares in the process. A fun way to support the indie film community and end out Two Months of Terror at the same time.
You can buy “New Fears Eve” on BluRay and find streaming options at the following link. You can watch the film’s trailer in the window below.
