Slasher movies were big, big money in 1981. Studios were stumbling all over themselves to get in on the act. Big name filmmakers were sometimes attached to them, such as J. Lee Thompson and Happy Birthday To Me. Night Warning/AKA Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker was directed by William Asher. Asher's name might not mean much to most horror fans, but he was huge in the early days of episodic television. One journalist even credited him as inventing the sitcom. That's a stretch, but he was behind numerous shows. Asher directed the majority of the I Love Lucy episodes. He worked on Make Room For Daddy, Gidget, and The Patty Duke Show. As a feature director Asher did squeaky clean sixties teen fodder like Bikini Beach, Beach Blanket Bingo, and How To Stuff a Wild Bikini.
William Asher also was the main director and producer of Bewitched. He married his star, Elizabeth Montgomery.
So what's a guy like him doing behind a nasty piece of work like Night Warning? Well, when your Hollywood star diminishes, you take what you can get.
Night Warning is the title I prefer. Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker is a bit cumbersome. Neither really properly describe the movie. Let's see if I can run down the bare bones of the plot.
Susan Tyrrell is the aunt of TV goodboy Jimmy McNichol. His parents suspiciously died in a car wreck years ago, which is depicted in one of the most creative and disturbing scenes in slasher history. Tyrrell obviously has an unhealthy obsession on the boy, but despite that she puts the moves on a TV repairman. When he rebukes her advances in a cruel way, she murders the guy. Little Jimmy arrives home and Tyrrell persuades him to say that she was being raped and killed the man in self defense.
Little did she know the repair dude was gay. Not only that, his partner was Jimmy's basketball coach. Enter Bo Svenson, a wildly homophobic police detective. Old Bo doesn't seem too interested in obtaining any genuine facts about the matter. Instead he merely wishes to see deviants punished.
Bo starts putting the screws to everyone in sight, while Susan Tyrrell rapidly becomes unraveled. If you've seen her in anything at all you know from the start that she is cracked. By the film's final quarter she has gone completely berserk, and tries to dispatch the entire cast with knives and a hatchet.
Tyrrell is amazing as always. Her performance brings to mind Joan Crawford in William Castle's Strait-Jacket. Tyrrell, however, makes Crawford look like one of the Golden Girls.
Night Warning has the look of a vintage TV movie, but it's pure drive-in lunacy. It has the distinction of being listed as a Video Nasty by bluenose British censors. Many have waited for an official release for quite some time. Code Red finally did so. The picture and sound on the Blu-ray aren't exactly pristine, and one wishes Shout Factory or Arrow had taken on the job. Still, it's good to see this near-forgotten oddity get any sort of release at all.
Written by Mark Sieber
William Asher also was the main director and producer of Bewitched. He married his star, Elizabeth Montgomery.
So what's a guy like him doing behind a nasty piece of work like Night Warning? Well, when your Hollywood star diminishes, you take what you can get.
Night Warning is the title I prefer. Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker is a bit cumbersome. Neither really properly describe the movie. Let's see if I can run down the bare bones of the plot.
Susan Tyrrell is the aunt of TV goodboy Jimmy McNichol. His parents suspiciously died in a car wreck years ago, which is depicted in one of the most creative and disturbing scenes in slasher history. Tyrrell obviously has an unhealthy obsession on the boy, but despite that she puts the moves on a TV repairman. When he rebukes her advances in a cruel way, she murders the guy. Little Jimmy arrives home and Tyrrell persuades him to say that she was being raped and killed the man in self defense.
Little did she know the repair dude was gay. Not only that, his partner was Jimmy's basketball coach. Enter Bo Svenson, a wildly homophobic police detective. Old Bo doesn't seem too interested in obtaining any genuine facts about the matter. Instead he merely wishes to see deviants punished.
Bo starts putting the screws to everyone in sight, while Susan Tyrrell rapidly becomes unraveled. If you've seen her in anything at all you know from the start that she is cracked. By the film's final quarter she has gone completely berserk, and tries to dispatch the entire cast with knives and a hatchet.
Tyrrell is amazing as always. Her performance brings to mind Joan Crawford in William Castle's Strait-Jacket. Tyrrell, however, makes Crawford look like one of the Golden Girls.
Night Warning has the look of a vintage TV movie, but it's pure drive-in lunacy. It has the distinction of being listed as a Video Nasty by bluenose British censors. Many have waited for an official release for quite some time. Code Red finally did so. The picture and sound on the Blu-ray aren't exactly pristine, and one wishes Shout Factory or Arrow had taken on the job. Still, it's good to see this near-forgotten oddity get any sort of release at all.
Written by Mark Sieber
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