on the review aggregator website rotten tomatoes, "new year's evil" has an approval rating of 14%, based on seven reviews. roger ebert of the "chicago sun-times" gave the film a 1½ and wrote, ""new year's evil" is an endangered species - a plain, old-fashioned, gory thriller. it is not very good. it is sometimes unpleasantly bloody. the plot is dumb and the twist at the end has been borrowed from hundreds if not thousands of other movies. but as thrillers go these days, "new year's evil" is a throwback to an older and simpler tradition, one that flourished way back in the dimly remembered past, before 1978". gene siskel gave the film zero stars out of four, calling it "a hideously ugly motion picture". "variety" wrote, "the true horror of "new year's evil" is the endless musical numbers by punk rockers and shots of their dancing fans. amongst that, the bloody killings seem a welcome relief." among retrospective reviews, eric vespe of ain't it cool news said, ""new year's evil" falls into that 'didn't love it, didn't hate it' gray area of mediocrity that doesn’t exactly inspire any kind of passion one way or the other. on the one hand it's too goofy and amateurish to really be creeped out by and on the other it's not fun enough to rally behind". dread central's matt serafini concluded, "this isn't worth your time if you're looking for a horror film to deliver in scares or suspense, but as a late night horror fix, it's ideal. what "new year's evil" lacks in scares it makes up for in pure entertainment. and really, that's all you can ask for". the film was labeled "another routine mad-slasher film" and a "strictly paint-by-numbers effort" by "tv guide".