Cody celebrates the new year a month late with a comedic slasher movie.
In the midst of racking up almost forty producing credits (as of right now), P.J. Starks has also found the time to write and direct segments of multiple horror anthologies: Volumes of Blood, Volumes of Blood: Horror Stories, 13 Slays Till X-Mas, and 10/31: Part 3. Now, Starks has teamed with fellow filmmaker Eric Huskisson (who also produced Volumes of Blood: Horror Stories and 13 Slays Till X-Mas, and directed a segment of the latter anthology) to direct a full feature – and together, they have delivered a very entertaining, and very silly, slasher movie.
The story, scripted by Starks, begins with news reports of a week-long murder spree carried out in West Virginia by a mysterious figure that wears a plague mask and is known only as The Doctor. The slasher wracked up an impressive body count during that week, and we get to see him tearing out eyeballs, ripping off a face, and murdering people in various other ways right up front.
A jump in space and time brings us to Kentucky in the days building up to New Years Eve. Most of the characters in the film work at a place called Hooper Industries, although nobody seems to have a solid grasp of exactly what Hooper even brings to the world. At the heart of it all are friends Leslie (Lily-Claire Harvey), Brian (Turner Vaughn), and Moses (Matthew Tichenor) – and there are some love triangle, or love square, shenanigans going on with these three, as at least two of them seem to have crushes on friends who seem to be interested in other people. There’s a lot of banter between these three, with Leslie giving off “final girl” vibes while Brian and Moses both come off as goofballs. Moses is especially goofy, and in a self-aware moment will even call himself out as a comic relief character who speaks only in punchlines.
He’s not the only comic relief character, though. This movie leans heavily into comedy. Even some of the kills are comedic... while some are surprisingly torturous, as the Doctor occasionally likes to switch things up and go a bit Jigsaw on some of his victims.
Some of the other comic relief characters include Hooper boss Mr. Dugan (his first name is either Coogan or John; I’m not sure if the movie got confused or I did because there’s so many characters to try to keep track of), played by Dave Sheridan, who shares the screen with his ditzy and horny secretary Stephanie (Felissa Rose). There’s also Hannah Fierman as a Hooper employee who runs an owl sanctuary and has an OnlyFans, Jason Crowe as a man looking for love, Roni Jonah as a woman who likes to share strange men with her boyfriend, and Final Destination writer Jeffrey Reddick as an employee who hates Mr. Dugan.
To celebrate the new year, the Doctor hacks and slashes his way through many Hooper Industries employees – and if that didn’t give you enough characters to try to differentiate from each other, there’s also a subplot involving FBI agents and cops that drop some twists and turns into the mix.
But never mind trying to keep track of who’s who and what they’re doing, because the real draw here is the comedic dialogue (which is often sexually-focused, bringing the works of Kevin Smith to mind) and the bloody death scenes. New Fears Eve is packed with both of them. I didn’t do a body count, but Starks says there are over forty all-practical kills in the film, and I believe him without question. There are a lot of bloody bodies left on the floor by the end of this one.
In the final moments, the door is left wide open for a sequel, and I would gladly watch a follow-up to see the Doctor continue his over-the-top killing spree.
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