NYE Event Planner

The procrastinator's guide to the best New Year's Eve parties in Dallas-Fort Worth

Big D NYE is one of the big parties you'll still be able to attend if you've procrastinated on making New Year's Eve plans.

Big D NYE/Facebook

Many people love to spend New Year's Eve out on the town, but with the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, actually planning to go to an event can slip by us.

Although many of the best parties have already sold out, there are still plenty of great options for ringing in the new year with your friends and hundreds — if not thousands — of strangers. Below are your best remaining options for welcoming 2015 in style.

Big D NYE and Sundance Square New Year Eve’s Celebration
The easiest parties to get into are the ones that don't cost a thing. Of course, you'll still want to try to get to the event sites — Victory Park in Dallas and Sundance Square in Fort Worth — as early as possible to get the best spot you can among the hordes.

Big D NYE claims to be the biggest New Year's celebration in the central time zone, and it features two stages with multiple bands and a DJ to keep the party hopping all night long. The Sundance Square celebration features former Voice contestants Luke Wade and Dawn and Hawkes, as well as the ability to buy champagne in the plaza.

New Year's Eve at W Dallas
If you don't want to be down in the fray but still want to get the feel of the huge crowd, going to the party at the W Dallas-Victory is the next best thing. Taking place in the Altitude lounge 33 floors up, you can dance all night long and get a bird's-eye view of the fireworks at midnight. This one is sold out online but claims to offer a limited number of tickets at the door. If you can't get in, you can still head to Victory Park next door.

NYE on Cloud Nine
While those in Times Square in New York City will watch a ball drop, you can celebrate the beginning of 2015 inside a ball. Cloud Nine Cafe, Five Sixty's private event space atop Reunion Tower, will host this party that will include food from Five Sixty's executive chef, all-inclusive cocktails, dancing and a champagne toast at midnight. Tickets are $200 apiece.

Masquerade NYE 2015
Winstons Supperclub is known for its outrageous parties throughout the year, so you can only imagine what's on the agenda for New Year's Eve. It's a masquerade-themed event featuring fire-breathers, girls in giant champagne bubbles and a huge chariot delivering oversized champagne bottles, among other things. Tickets start at $30 for singles and $50 for couples.

A Fashionable New Year's Eve
You wouldn't expect Fashion Industry Gallery to host anything but the most stylish party in town, would you? Don't try to come in jeans or sneakers to this event, or you might be told to hit the road. Starting at $80 for women and $100 for men, you get free drinks all night, free hors d'oeuvre 'til 11 pm and great music by DJ Humble.

106.1 KISS FM's NYE Bash
The Gaylord Texan is an opulent resort in Grapevine, and the Glass Cactus Nightclub hosts a party thrown by 106.1 KISS FM. It features entertainment by DJ Junior and live music from Party Machine. The $75 cost of admission only gets you one drink and one glass of champagne, plus party favors, so it is a bit on the pricey side, but it should still be a great time regardless.

Texas Theatre presents New Year's Noir
Texas Theatre has a ton planned for its celebration, including live music from Nervous Curtains, a human "ball drop" at midnight from silks aerialist Bethany Summersizzle, burlesque performances, music from DJs Trigger Mortis and Wild in the Streets, and Mikey Dino's singing the songs of Dean Martin. For only $25 or $45 for VIP, that's a heck of a deal.

Jonathan Tyler & The Northern Lights New Year's Eve Bash
Sure, you could listen to a DJ spin music at most parties, but there's nothing quite like a live band or three to really make you feel like dancing. Dallas' Jonathan Tyler & The Northern Lights once again headlines the NYE concert at the Granada Theater, with support from Nashville's Nikki Lane and Dallas' J. Charles & the Trainrobbers. Tickets are $20 a pop.

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Movie Review

Faces of Death returns with modern twist on cult horror film

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy - in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks - is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

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Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

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