‘New Fears Eve’ Review
Stars: Dave Sheridan, Felissa Rose, Lily-Claire Harvey, Matthew Tichenor, Turner Vaughn, Jeffrey Reddick, Hannah Fierman, Jason Crowe, Sonya Delormier, Erica Dyer | Written by PJ Sparks | Directed by Eric Huckington, PJ Sparks
There’s something inherently appealing about the idea of a New Year’s Eve slasher. The forced cheer, the office parties, the countdown to midnight – it’s a ready-made backdrop for bloodshed. Unfortunately, New Fears Eve, directed by Eric Huckington and PJ Sparks, is less a razor-sharp seasonal slasher and more a chaotic office in-joke that occasionally remembers it’s supposed to be a horror film.
Set within a workplace clearly riffing on Clerks and The Office, the story follows a group of employees – from the lowly desk drones to their boss (played by Dave Sheridan) – as a masked plague doctor-style killer begins carving through the local area and sets their sights on the company’s New Year’s Eve party. Felissa Rose and Sheridan are the recognisable genre names here, though neither are the central focus. Instead, the film leans heavily on ensemble banter and workplace dynamics.
And that’s where your mileage will vary dramatically.
This is a horror-comedy with a capital C. The humour is broad, juvenile and frequently fixated on sex jokes, fart gags and deliberately crude punchlines. There are nods to genre staples, some meta references and the odd deeper cut for B-movie fans, but the overwhelming tone is knowingly silly. If that brand of slapstick absurdity works for you, there’s consistency to it. If it doesn’t, the film can feel like an endurance test.
Where New Fears Eve does deliver, unequivocally, is in its body count. The film opens with a montage of inventive, practical kills and rarely lets up from there. Some are simple throat slashes; others veer into gleeful gross-out territory (yes, there’s a dildo-through-the-eye moment). One standout sequence involving cops triggering Saw-esque traps in a warehouse briefly shifts the tone into something darker and more effective, proving the filmmakers can land something more impactful when they dial back the wackiness.
Visually, it has a faint ’90s slasher energy – albeit filtered through parody. The plague doctor killer, however, looks more cartoonish than threatening, with an impractically oversized headpiece that undercuts any real menace. It’s hard to fear a villain who looks like you could spin their mask around and send them stumbling blindly into a filing cabinet.
Narratively, the film feels messy. Subplots, including hints of police collusion and character relationship angles, are introduced but go nowhere. The large ensemble doesn’t help; with similar-looking characters in matching office attire and largely interchangeable voices, it’s difficult to form any attachment before they’re dispatched. The dialogue aspires to Kevin Smith or Tarantino-esque quippiness, but the writing lacks distinction between characters, making everyone feel like variations of the same joke machine.
Add in some ropey performances (even allowing for the tongue-in-cheek tone), and the whole thing teeters on the edge of full-blown parody without ever committing.
Still, if your priority is inventive, practical gore, a high kill count and unapologetically silly horror, there’s scrappy fun to be found here. For everyone else, New Fears Eve feels like a chopped-up edit of a better film that never quite materialises.
**½ 2.5/5
Ultimately, New Fears Eve is a middle-of-the-road effort that will absolutely find its audience, just not a universal one.
