New Year's Resolution

Read the screenplay (PDF) — Original screenplay.

Every year, we all make resolutions that we know we'll never keep. It's those of us who keep our resolutions that you should be worried about.

Every year, people make New Year's resolutions they know they will never keep. The ones who do keep them are the ones to worry about. Will is one of those people.

It is New Year's Eve and Will is throwing a party. His guests are Julie, Dan, Dan's girlfriend Alicia, Scott and Al. With one minute left before the ball drops, Will has everyone take a glass of champagne because he wants to say something first. Dan jokes that he had better talk fast. Will says it means a lot to have them all there. It has been a year full of challenges and he is glad they came. He raises his glass to a new year, new beginnings and permanent endings, and tells them to drink up.

The ball drops and everyone yells Happy New Year. Will says he has one more thing to say, and this one is important. Before he can say it, Scott starts choking and foaming at the mouth and falls to the floor. Someone asks if they should call 911 and someone else tells everyone to stay calm. Will agrees they might as well stay calm, because the same thing is about to happen to all of them. He poisoned them. Nobody believes him at first. Then the phone has no service, because Will blocked the signal in his apartment. Scott is dead. The guests find that everything is nailed shut. Will says he needed to make sure none of them could get out, because he wants to watch them die.

Will explains why. He poisoned them because they poisoned his life. They stole from him, blocked him from a promotion at work, talked his ex into breaking up with him and lied to him, and he says the list goes on. His New Year's resolution was to rid himself of the pests in his life, and what better way to kill pests than with poison. Dan tells him he is a dead man, goes after him and spits foam all over him as he dies. Will says goodbye to Dan, Alicia and Scott, and swears at Al over and over.

Then he turns to Julie, who is still standing. He wants to know why she is not dead like the rest of them. She says she did not drink. Will does not buy it. He calls her a drunk and a lush and says there is no way she skipped the champagne. She promises she did not. Julie is a recovering alcoholic, so she passed on the toast. Will mocks her for finally trying to be a decent person and make something of herself, and says it is too late. Poison or no poison, she has to die like the rest of them. He backs her against the refrigerator and stabs her, yells Happy New Year and laughs as the film ends. Will is the only one left alive.

Release & Reception

• Distributor: StabMovies.com YouTube channel (free to watch)

StabMovies.com posted three teasers. The first went up on August 3, 2014. A second followed on December 27, 2014, calling the film an original short made in honor of the New Year celebration that would premiere at midnight on New Year's Eve. A teaser trailer posted on December 31, 2014 said it would come out that night at midnight Eastern time on the YouTube channel.

The full short is dated December 31, 2014 on YouTube as New Year's Resolution | Short Film | Full Movie. It had about 6,300 views when checked in September 2026.

Dudley said the ending, with Will laughing, drew so many comments about his creepy laugh that he repeated the idea in Christmas Wish, where his character also laughs into the credits.

Cast

Crew

Production

New Year's Resolution is an original short film made for StabMovies.com in honor of the New Year celebration.

After the Stab movies and their first three short films, StabMovies.com decided to make twelve more shorts. The plan was to film them back to back ahead of time and release one a month, each built around a holiday. They called it the 12 Months of Terror. New Year's Resolution was the January entry and the first one released. The project was never finished and ended with Cinco in May.

Joshua Patrick Dudley wrote, directed and executive produced the short and played Will. He called the idea very simple: a man invites people over for New Year's Eve and poisons them with champagne for ruining his life. He said the rule for the 12 Months of Terror was that nobody would live unless they were a killer.

It was filmed well before January. Dudley remembers shooting in October and November. The crew rented a hotel suite they had already used for some of the Stab movies and decorated it as a New Year's party. The cast ran lines at a table read out in the parking lot.

About ten extras were supposed to fill the party so the poisoning would be a big mass death. Only Gregory Tolson showed up. Dudley gave him a name and worked him into the script so his being there made sense. The site's fun facts put the number of missing extras at more than six. In his commentary Dudley said it was upsetting after all the planning and the hotel rental.

Brandon Vesci was only supposed to help with makeup effects. An actor did not show up, so the team talked him into playing Dan. It was his first acting job. Lindsey Klossner played Alicia and said it was one of her favorite characters because she felt confident in the part.

Filming went quickly. It was shot in one night, in about four or five hours, run and gun. The production had just bought a dolly and used it for a few slow moving shots, including Julie backing toward the refrigerator. They also tried tight close-ups of the characters talking. Some came out well and some came out blurry, and the blurry ones were not caught until it was too late to use them. The short also tried a new style of title sequence.

Dudley wanted to give Rachel Alexandria Arnold something different from the killers and masterminds she usually plays in the Stab movies. Julie is the final girl, even though she dies. Arnold said it was the first time she felt she had a real acting moment. When Dudley threw her against the refrigerator she flinched for real, and he stopped because he thought he had hurt her.

Part 11 of the Behind the Mask documentary, released June 24, 2020, covers the making of the short. It has interviews with Joshua Patrick Dudley, Rachel Alexandria Arnold, Lindsey Klossner and Brandon Vesci.

Music

The official film page and full upload do not name a composer or a standalone soundtrack release.

Filming locations

• A rented hotel suite, previously used for some of the Stab movies: Will's New Year's Eve party. The team got fake blood on the walls.
• The hotel parking lot: Cast table read before filming

Effects and makeup

The poison veins were drawn on the actors' faces and necks with Crayola markers because supplies were running low. Patrick Stewart died first and Dudley drew his veins himself. He admits they came out thick and chunky. Brandon Vesci did the veins on everyone else, and those are lighter and look more like real veins.

The foam was made with Alka-Seltzer tablets. The actors put a tablet in their mouths and either let it dissolve or added a little water and swished it around until their mouths filled with foam, then choked it out. Patrick Stewart just sucked on his, and his foam came out the thickest.

Stewart had a hard time falling down dead, and it became a running joke on set. Dudley said it took a long time to get the take of him hitting the floor that is in the film.

Brandon Vesci had to spit foam on Dudley three times before they got a usable take. Dudley gagged for real. The shot in the finished film is him close to throwing up, and the gag can be heard in the bloopers.

Dudley pointed out the nails on the door behind Rachel Alexandria Arnold as a weak effect in his commentary.

Props and costumes

Champagne glasses for the poisoned toast.

The knife Will uses on Julie is the Buck 120, which Dudley calls "our famous Buck 120" in the making-of.

Party decorations and confetti; the bloopers show the leftover confetti and blood after the cast spent about two hours lying dead.

The killers

Deaths

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Watch the film

Playlists

• The bonus features playlist

Gallery

Pictures