Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

One of my all time favorites.

Fresh and Exciting

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

When his parents are tragically killed Billy goes to live with his aunt who appears to be fixated on keeping him with her at all costs. When the aunt kills a man who won't sleep with her the police detective investigating suspect the aunt is protecting Billy who he thinks was having a relationship with Billy.An incredibly dark thriller with some very strange events. Bo Svenson who plays the lead cop on the case has to be one of the most unlikeable characters in horror film history, he is so unpleasantly homophobic/sexist/racist it makes it quite difficult to watch. Susan Tyrrell as the psycho aunt is brilliant and plays her with a truly demented edge, Jimmy McNichol as Billy and Julia Duffy as Julie are also very good. Writing overall is good, the character aunt Cheryl story's come out bit by bit and is always interesting(especially her relationship with Billy) as is the climax, but the detective story is so deliberately offensive it does undermine some of the story. The make-up effects are very good, the opening scene is impressive as is the violent set-pieces at the end. The atmosphere is excellent, the tension mounts and builds to a very strong finale.Not a gory or exploitative horror but a well made and brilliantly put together picture. How this well thought of film was banned as a video nasty and then rejected by the BBFC is astounding, this does deserve a release on DVD it has been on the shelf too long.

An orphaned teenager finds himself being dominated by his aunt who's hell-bent on keeping him with her...at all costs.Sexually repressed Aunt Cheryl wants her little teenage Billy to stay at home.She will do everything to make him stay-even when it means bloody murder..."Night Warning" by sadly deceased this year William Asher is an unique entry into the slasher film sub-genre.It's obviously influenced by "Psycho","What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" or "Strait-Jacket" with shades of "Friday the 13th" hidden in the dark.Susan Tyrrell's main performance is utterly nutty and unhinged.Bo Svenson is also fantastic as a homophobic detective.The script is entertaining and there is a good amount of gore and bloody slashing.If you like rural setting,shocks and wild insanity "Night Warning" is a perfect film to watch.9 aunts out of 10.

Jimmy Lynch (Billy McNichol) is a promising high school basketball player. When he was a child, his parents were both killed in a freak road accident, and has since then been looked after by his loving, but slightly overbearing aunt Cheryl (Susan Tyrrell). He returns home one night to find his aunt holding a knife after killing a maintenance man. She had desperately groped him, shouting that she needs a man, only for him to reject her. Det. Carlson (Bo Svenson) is assigned to investigate, and when the bigoted detective finds out that the maintenance man was gay, he suspects Jimmy of also being a homosexual. He then discovers that Jimmy's basketball coach is also gay, and suspects the murder is a result of a big gay love triangle.When I was deciding which Video Nasty to watch next by reading up about them on Wikipedia, this film, also known as Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker, certainly caught my eye and sounded more interesting than the likes of Faces of Death. A Video Nasty exploring homophobia and incest, whilst mixed with a bit of gruesome violence? I was sold! As usual though, I was left disappointed. While the film certainly raises itself above tedium every now and then, it is no more than a standard psycho- biddy film, and those aforementioned themes left relatively unexplored. However Tyrrell turns in an effective performance, and Bo Svenson is certainly very funny (although I doubt that was the intention) as his rather dated gay-bashing cop. Not the worst Nasty by a long, long way, but certainly a missed opportunity. And watch out for a young Bill (listed here as William) Paxton.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

The director of "Gidget" and the Beach Party movies - united with the writer of the uber-crappy hinterland rape plod "Abducted" - here bring you SUSAN TYRRELL! Doing a nightmare riff off Piper Laurie's psycho mom in "Carrie," making the original look like Gidget in the process! You have never seen anything like it - even, I'm assured, if you think you've seen Tyrrell go over-the-top in other roles. Plainly bat-wacky from the first exchange, padding around the manse muttering under her breath, lurching toward total meltdown in unexpected but definitive bursts, this is an absolute high camp masterpiece of a performance, one for the ages. And damned if the movie doesn't do its best to keep up - with good pacing, adequate attention to logic and larger amounts of creative gore splooshed around than you would have thought absolutely necessary. Newhart's Julia Duffy is cute as the interloping teen photog, Jimmy McNichol is kinda bland and stupid, but does what he needs to do, and Bo Svensson is a fabulous opposite number for Tyrrell - coiled and menacing as a homophobic megalomaniac police chief. Out of nowhere, he turns the movie into a treatise about the relative perversion of the 'normal' nuclear family - bet Robin Wood loves this one. The movie can't touch Tyrrell - the Christian subtext is a propos of nothing but market placement, again cf. "Carrie" - but all she needs is a steady platform to careen across, and she gets more than that.