5 Worst New Year's Eve Movies

By Frank Meyer,G4Tv
December 28,2004

There’s something about a movie plot involving New Year’s Eve that guarantees its crappiness. Yes, it seems any time a film is centered around the changing of the year, it blows. Even the great Charlie Brown was nearly undone by a crappy New Year’s Eve TV movie. But he survived. And so did Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Janeane Garofalo, and countless other actors that accidentally stumbled into one of these quagmires.

But all is not lost… at least not for many of us. For those of us who don’t have a raging party to attend and subsequently barf at, there’s nothing better to do on a New Year’s Eve than curl up in front of the tube with a B-movie and ring in the New Year all nice and cozy-like. And what better subject for your trashy movie watching pleasure than New Year’s Eve, baby! Am I right? Maybe? Maybe not. Anyways, here’s some craptacular New Year’s Eve flicks for your viewing pleasure. Rock on…

New Year's Evil (1981)
A punk rock DJ is broadcasting a TV special to ring in the new year and starts getting harassed by a creepy caller who promises to murder someone every time the four time zones ring in the new year, culminating in her death. As the bodies begin to mount, the DJ decides she must fight back in this low-budget horror flick. Despite the terrific poster, the movie is a little underwhelming. But fans of the genre know that there’s nothing quite like the badness of an early ‘80s horror movie. I’d recommend it if you want some cheese with your champagne.

Happy New Year, Charlie Brown! (1985)
Oh Charlie Brown, your tales of childhood angst were among the best ever… until the mid-‘80s. At some point, Charles Schultz’s classic characters started getting voiced by annoying adults, the scripts lost their dark undertones, and the vibe began to get more schticky-icky, and less classy-wassy. By the time this one rolled around, Charlie was faced with mounting problems like whether to go to lesbian friend Peppermint Patty's New Year's Eve party or read War and Peace. Yes, I’m serious. THAT is the actual plot. Race For Your Life Charlie Brown may have been the series’ last great stand.

Strange Days (1995)
Set in the year 1999 during the last days of that lame old millennium, ex-cop-turned-memory-disc-salesman Ralph Fiennes receives a disc which contains the memories of a murderer killing a prostitute. Lenny investigates and is pulled deeper and deeper in a swirling vortex of blackmail, murder and rape. Will he survive and solve the case? Could Angela Bassett look hotter, yet be more annoying in this film? Will Juliette Lewis and Tom Sizemore ever play anything other than a quirky bimbo and shifty opportunist? All these questions are answered in this fun, dopey joyride.

Four Rooms (1995)
How can four hip directors -- Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriquez, Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell -- make such a hilariously bad film? Well, start by casting Madonna as a topless witch. Then make it a collection of short films. And lastly, confine each of them to a room in a hotel. And wah-la, you get Four Rooms, eight breasts, two screaming kids, two fine comic turns from Antonio Banderas and Tim Roth, and one grandiose flop. But it’s worth watching.

200 Cigarettes (1999)
Set in 1981 in New York's Lower East Village during one very loooong New Year's Eve night out, a bunch of post-slacker hipsters head out seeking a good time and end up learning a thing or two about life. Sound like an after-school special? Well, it plays like one too. And is there a less appealing cast of characters than Paul Rudd, Courtney Love, Ben Affleck, Cassey Affleck, Jay Mohr, Kate Hudson, Janeane Garofalo, Martha Plimpton, Gaby Hoffmann, and Christina Ricci? However, Dave Chappelle has a recurring cameo as a disco cab driver, and that alone makes this worth watching. Reality Bites with slightly more bite yet, ironically, less reality.