Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker

One of the more frustrating aspects of being a horror fan in the 1980s was hearing about movies in magazines like Fangoria and Famous Monsters of Filmland that never seemed to materialize. Every month you'd see tantalizing photos and descriptions of films like Mausoleum and Trap Them and Kill Them that never got a national release in theaters, and one of the most mysterious of these was an item called Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981). Featuring artwork showing a young couple in front of a giant knife slash, it promised to be a stylish entry in the rapidly escalating slasher trend in the early '80s with a can't-miss cast featuring stalwarts like Susan Tyrrell and Bo Svenson. The horror press breathlessly played up that the film was a winner chosen by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA, now better known as the Saturn Awards. And then... it vanished. A few lucky patrons who kept an eye on their newspaper listings managed to catch a tiny handful of regional trial runs from a small indie outfit called Comworld Pictures, who also handled titles like One Dark Night (1982), but that was really it. Adding to the frustration, major publisher Pocket Books issued a paperback tie-in novel by Joseph Burgo that populated bookshelves all around the country in 1981, promoting a film that nobody could go out and see. Eventually, word got out a couple of years later that the film had gotten a belated release on VHS from HBO Video under the title Night Warning, featuring generic cover art that was more befitting of a young adult mystery novel than an R-rated horror film. Luckily, intrepid video hunters were finally rewarded with an offbeat, skillfully made shocker that more than delivered the goods and stood out from its slasher brethren with strong performances and some very unexpected story elements. The film grabs you right from the outset as an unfortunate husband and wife leave their child in the care of Aunt Cheryl (Tyrrell), only to meet a gruesome fate in their car worthy of a Final Destination film. Flash forward several years as the young boy, Billy, is now grown up (and played by Jimmy McNichol, pop singer and brother of Kristy McNichol). His passage to manhood, with a possible basketball scholarship and a romance with pretty Julia (future Newhart TV star Julia Duffy), is rocked by the unexpected slaying of a TV repairman whom Cheryl claims was trying to assault her. Extremely bigoted detective Joe Carlson (Svenson) starts investigating and firing out accusations of a homicidal gay love triangle involving Billy, which sets off a mounting body count The biggest shock for drive-in movie fans here is undeniably the choice of director, William Asher--the onetime husband of Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery (with whom he worked throughout the course of that show) and director of the lion's share of AIP's beach hits like Beach Party (1963), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965). Apart from his ability to hone in on the perspectives of teenagers, it's a far cry from his usual fare, particularly given that he was mostly working on sitcoms both before and after this assignment. The screenplay, co-authored by Steve Breimer, Alan Jay Glueckman and Boon Collins is remarkably ahead of its time in its depiction of high school coach Tom Landers (played by Field of Dreams', 1989, Steve Eastin), who is openly gay, partnered and portrayed as a positive influence in the students' lives. Furthermore, the kids don't bat an eye at his sexual orientation, which also doesn't cause him to be punished (or killed off, the norm for the time). The fact that our two young protagonists embark on a sexual relationship in the film is also one of the many refutations to the lazy stereotype that '80s horror films had a "have sex and die" mantra, and if anything, it owes as much to the so-called "horror hag" potboilers of the '60s as any of the recent slasher films with which it was so commonly grouped. Despite its ignominious beginnings, Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker has gone on to become a bona fide cult classic with regular theatrical revivals on the repertory circuit. It also stands as a testament to the fearless abilities of Susan Tyrrell, who had racked up an Oscar nomination for one of her earliest performances in John Huston's Fat City (1972), and earned her midnight movie credentials in such films as Bad (1977), Forbidden Zone (1980) and Cry-Baby (1990). Though she left us in 2012, Tyrell's fiery screen presence will never be forgotten. By Nathaniel Thompson