Bloody New Year

Bloody New Year (also titled Timewarp Terror in some releases) is a British horror film released in 1987. Directed by Norman J. Warren, it concerns a group of British Teenagers trapped on a haunted hotel on a remote island.

Warren was approached by Maxine Julius to make a horror film for her, and he developed the plot over seven days with line producer Hayden Pearce. Warren intended the film as a reminder of 1950s B movies, with the film set on an island that is trapped in a time warp where it is always New Years Eve, 1959.

The film was shot in and around Barry Island with Friars Point House used as the Grand Hotel location.

In 1959, a group of party goers celebrate at a New Year's Eve party at a hotel before mysteriously disappearing. In the 1980s, friends Lesley, Janet, Spud, Tom, and Rick are spending the day at a seaside funfair, when they run afoul of local hooligans after rescuing the American tourist Carol. Running from the gang, they take a boat out to sea, only to run aground and be left stranded on an island. Stumbling across the hotel, they look for help, only to find it abandoned, with no sign of staff or guests, except for ghostly figures that appear and disappear in the distance.

After some time, apparitions and monsters appear around the hotel, with even the building itself attacking the group, slowly picking them off, some who become zombies. With only Carol and Rick remaining, the ghosts of the 1959 party appear and explain that the hotel is stuck in a timewarp due to a scientific experiment gone wrong, leaving the undead guests trapped. As the last of the group are killed, they reappear as part of the original 1959 party, apparently trapped in the hotel.

Dennis Schwartz, in his review for Ozus' World Movie Reviews considered Bloody New Year to be a " Teens-in-peril exploitation horror film from England. Under the cheesy direction of Norman J. Warren ("Gunpowder"/"Terror"/"Spaced Out") This is the final film of the schlock-master. What prevails is a goofy film with not much plot. The dialogue is written by Frazer Pearce and is brutal. The reason for the time-warp is never explained, even though it's central to the premise."