Susan Tyrrell’s Frightening Feats: An In-Depth Review of Night Warning a.k.a. Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker!
Night Warning, aka Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker begins with mom and dad going on an innocent road trip to visit grandma and grandpa, leaving their little Billy behind with Auntie Cheryl. Awww!
Billy cries as he reaches out for his leaving parents. We turn and Auntie Cheryl is freeze framed in menacing fashion. Aunt Cheryl is played by Susan Tyrrell (Cry-baby, From a Whisper to a Scream) and she is about to give one of the greatest horror performances in the history of cinema.
The parents drive along the winding coastal highway roads only to discover the breaks have been cut (tough break!). Long cut pipes hanging out the back of a semi truck soon slams thru the front window and entire head of dear departed dad. Mom desperately grabs the steering wheel and veers off the road and screams all the way off a cliff, headfirst into a crushing end into a shallow riverbank. A conspicuously giant-sized photograph of young Billy floats out of the totalled car. And it being the ‘80s, we all know when cars fall off cliffs, they must explode like C4. It was the law in ‘80s films! Hilariously we are not disappointed. Great opening!
The conspicuous photo of Billy is focused in on and we fade to… a silly cardboard cutout where you stick your head in a slot and get your picture taken with some cartoonish body. Billy’s is taken with his Aunt Cheryl, who adopted him. What a kind-hearted lady she must be for taking him in after his parents mysteriously blew up.
Caption reads “14 years later”
The alarm wakes up Aunt Cheryl in bed and she frights awake. Her eyes of fearful panic is genuinely scary, peering out from her sheets, if you look at it. It’s like an even scarier version of Norma Desmond only in a domestic life under a completely different circumstance.
Cheryl rummages through Billy’s things and finds a picture of a girlfriend and a condom! Aunt Cheryl bites her lip. She knows Billy is being a bad boy.
Her eyes slant with malice as she peers over towards Billy who’s half naked in bed, still dreaming of sugar plums.
She hovers over Billy and starts purring and meowing like a cat. Her eyes are rather feline, and she starts to scratch his back. It’s very suggestive of attraction. But then retreats into innocent tickle play. I see you creeping your stepson, lady.
She hates Billy’s bouncing a basketball inside and gets upset when she disrespects the breakfast she made and just wants to run to school.
He asks if Julie can come to his birthday. “Julie again?! Sounds serious!” Green-eyed-monster is stirring. “Billy’s got a girlfriend. Billy’s got a girlfriend.” Billy sticks out his tongue.
“Billy you don’t do that. It’s disgusting.” She says with more than a little sexual interest in her expression. Then seamlessly retorts as innocent caretaker “I’m going to be your date tomorrow night.” What a subtle performance.
“Whatever makes you happy.” Billy says. “You make me happy.” she replies with naked honesty.
At school Billy’s rocking it as a star basketball player and his girlfriend is taking snapshots of him for what I trust is a newspaper (and not just for her own… uh, edification). The Basketball Coach (who looks like if Julio Iglesias, Ringo Starr, and Mark Ruffalo had a love thrupple child) offers words of encouragement. And he berates a foul call from none other than a very young Bill Paxton (Predator 2, Aliens, The Vagrant). He’s Billy’s sporting rival.
“Next time keep your queer hands off of me. Okay?!” spouts Bill Paxton. It’s jealousy more than homophobia if we’re being accurate about this insult. As I recall from grade school it was always jealously to throw that term around at all and was virtually never used in context.
Billy’s walking alone in the dark hallway of lockers after a practice and straight outta nowhere, false alarm fright, as his nerd girlfriend takes a picture of Billy for the jump scare. Julie wants to have dinner with him, but he’s kinda whipped (groomed) by Auntie Cheryl as Billy says innocently, he’s gotta get home to talk to her about something. Julie doesn’t want to upset him.
Back at home Cheryl made his favorite meal. But Billy’s got good news. Coach says he could get a basketball scholarship to U of Denver. Auntie is nonplussed. “What do you think?” Billy inquires. “What do I think? Forget it!” Cheryl dismisses. I feel Bobby Boucher’s Mama (and for that matter another Kathy Bates role in Misery) got her roots in this character.
“University of Denver. That’s where Julie’s going right? Gee. Billy, college is for people with money and brains. You wouldn’t fit in there.” Damn! Way to pimp slap the boy’s ego. “You never said that before!” Billy notes.
New tact, tears: “I don’t want you to go. We can’t afford it!” she professes. “I thought you were going to contribute something. I thought you owed me for the 14 years I’ve raised you.” Continuing, “That’s it. You’re staying here! And you’re going to take that job I got you. And that’s final.”
“No I’m not. I’m going to take that scholarship and leave you here. I’m outta here!” She slaps Billy and pouts. So does he.
Later she goes to a candled shrine for a deceased person, where she keeps the pickled jars. Maybe it is for Billy’s parents? She mumbles at the shrine about her frustrations of the day. Mysterious shit!
After collecting her thoughts she returns to Billy the next morning, all nice now, and offers a card that allows him to take the scholarship. Manic much?
At school he tells Julie he’s got a scholarship to her university. She is pleased. Premature victory, I think.
Aunt Cheryl meanwhile is gussying herself up. Doing toenails. Her hair. She instantly approaches the repairman and starts lifting her skirt for him. (Whoa. This party’s really picking up!) She grabs him real close. But this guy’s a real party pooper. “I’m not interested. Alright lady?!” he says as he pushes her away with authority.
Billy returns on his Scooter.
“I need a man! I’ll do anything you want.” He tears her breast cloth off, exposing her tit.
“Anything? Okay.” Unzips. “Work of it!” the repair man says. She refuses so he turns to leave, and she stabs him right in the back and then right in the chest, frighteningly in slow motion. She moans an unintelligible word. It’s so frighteningly real her reaction. She is such a great actress. I’m really getting pulled into this.
Two friends of the family come to visit at this inopportune time (opportune for Aunt Cheryl perhaps to witness her literal psychodrama). They traverse through the house and ominously a “Happy Birthday Billy” sign in blood red is hung up.
Again, Cheryl cries in such a pathetic frightening way. It curdles my mind. Repair man dead in the corner, Cheryl naked, covered in blood, and poor innocent Billy holding the knife. She hugs the neighbor and leaves two bloody hand marks on her back.
Later police arrive including a big ole bastard, Bo Svenson (The Inglorious Bastards (1978), Kill Bill Volume 2). He plays Detective Joe Carlson.
“Do you buy attempted rape?” another officer asks Detective Joe. “No.” he replies.
The other officers chide over the repairman’s dead body “poor guy didn’t even get his pecker out.”
Feeling the hard sell Aunt Cheryl puts the emotional screws to Billy to get him to confess it was a rape attempt. Detective Joe isn’t buying it still. It doesn’t add up somehow. He shouts at her; she shouts back it was a rape and that’s why she killed him.
Billy falls silent.
Detective Joe presses Billy as a killer. She acknowledges it was her, not Billy. Detective Joe turns his questioning to her. She clings to Billy’s arm like a lover.
“Do you have boyfriends?” Detective Joe asks her.
“No.”
“Do you like women?“
“No.” Cheryl asserts.
“You’re sick.” Billy says.
“Just the two of you in this big house?“
“We have each other for comfort.“
With a strong, assertive look in his eye, “I bet you do.” Bo insinuates. “He (the repair man) was fairly athletic. Why didn’t he just pin you down?”
“He tried but I got away.“
“You said he touched your boob. Where else did he touch?“
“I refuse to answer anymore of your questions.”
“I don’t give a shit what you do.” Hothead cop. Big dumb Bo Hunk.
Next day. Billy finds Auntie throwing old papers in the fire to clear out the attic and she acts like a ghost just appeared. Sign of a guilty, lonesome mind those ghosts.
She promises to make him a little apartment up there but says “don’t go up there until I’ve cleaned it out.”
He wants to go away to school but she won’t hear it.
Billy announces the cop was at his school trying to get him to take a polygraph. Auntie says no, never.
Billy goes into the attic against Auntie Cheryl’s wishes, takes a dusty box of old papers and a rat makes him trip down the attic steps like a dumbass. Auntie Cheryl rushes up like a hero to rescue her life preserver Billy.
She sees a photograph of some guy Billy’s mother used to go out with. Billy asks who it was. Some twerp your mom used to go out with.
Detective Joe Carlson (Bo Svenson) confronts Coach with a ring which as a clue insinuates he was in love with the repair man/murder victim who Auntie Cheryl killed/claimed was threatening to rape her, which technically might absolve him of the rape charge most likely. He accuses Coach of having no feelings about the death of his lover then asks him to resign as coach or be exposed as a homosexual in the ‘70s (a severe threat back then).
Auntie Cheryl wanders the attic tearing down parts of the wall where she finds a shrine to Billy’s father. She confesses to a picture of Billy’s father that she had to kill the neighbor because he hurt her just like (you) Billy’s father used to hurt her (Auntie Cheryl)! She’s obsessed with the child of a man she used to love/worship/obsess over. Seems like she wanted his child and killed Billy’s mother and father out of jealousy for their happy life together while she was always on the outside only let in via abuse and rape!? Maybe? Fascinating psychology here!
Bill Paxton punks off Billy in that awesome way only Bill Paxton ever could by saying “You went into Coach’s office alone. Do you and him, you know? You know, you and him were real close?” He laughs at Billy. Billy pours milk of Paxton’s head. He can’t get a break from Terminator, Predator, Aliens and now Billy! But Paxton’s gunna get himself some and punches Billy. They scrap it out.
Back at home Billy’s shooting hoops. Detective Joe Carlson grabs an errant ball and swishes. Billy is impressed. Carlson asks “Coach teach you those nice moves? Doesn’t it bother you he’s a fag?” Man, this guy is such a prime ‘70s prick. He then says “It makes me angry when people lie to me. Are you a fag?” “You’re crazy.” Billy replies.
Detective Joe Carlson says it doesn’t make sense if the victim was gay and Coach is gay unless you’re gay Billy and killed him over a lover’s quarrel. (Actually, it’s not a bad or unintelligible theory). But we know better of course.
Last bit of basketball advice from Detective Joe Carlson… when you’re shooting keep your wrist limp… that shouldn’t be too much trouble for you, eh Billy? What a magnificent prick!
Billy’s feeling confused and like shit at dinner. “Did you know Coach was gay? Gay people are very very sick Billy.” screams Auntie Homophobic Cheryl. “Coach isn’t sick.” Billy defends and runs away.
Coach approaches Detective Joe Carlson informing him he is quitting as Carlson forced, but says the victim was also married to a woman so it’ll throw a monkey wrench in the rape refutation Carlson was banking on against Auntie Cheryl being the murderer, while also taking the heat off Billy somewhat from a potential motive perspective.
“What’s your problem Carlson?” asks Coach.
“People like you. Get the fuck outta my office!” (Damn, King Shit styles). Coach rightly shakes his head and leaves.
Persistent if nothing else, Detective Carlson talks to Billy’s girlfriend to confirm independently his straightness. She refuses to kiss and tell and says he’s more of a man than you’ll ever be. A comment Joe Carlson takes in stride.
A hand reaches across Billy’s chest. And swerve! No, it’s not Auntie Cheryl you sickos! You know you thought it was her! (Dirty! Dirty minds out there!) It’s… Billy’s girlfriend. They’re doing it! Billy is straight. (Whew, what a relief?)
Billy and Girlfriend make love just then Auntie Cheryl busts in. “You get dressed and get that slut outta here!“
Billy goes to his shower naked. Aunt Cheryl wants to bust his balls and tells never to do that again. He says he’s 17. She kisses him. He slams the door on her.
Auntie Cheryl is back at the shrine telling Billy’s murdered father that she can’t believe Billy still wants to move away.
Detective Carlson confers with another cop (familiar actor). Billy didn’t have a father and was surrounded by women, thus that’s why he’s probably gay! Gee, that was the psychology of gayness all along, eh? Movies! Funny! The other cop reveals the possible attempted murder of Billy’s parents with the break lines from the opening scene. Detective Carlson forbids talking about that as it interferes with his gay motives for the murder.
Auntie Cheryl spikes some milk and cookies for Billy before his big game that he’ll be judged for to earn his scholarship. With Auntie Cheryl behind you 100% Billy, what could go wrong?
Billy’s playing and he’s on fire but eventually the drugs fuck him up. Auntie Cheryl’s in the audience like a monster. His future is destroyed. Hers is affirmed.
Billy wakes up in a childish room made for him in the attic. “There are so many perverts out there, Billy. Stay here with me instead.” (Uh yeah! No perverts in here!)
Cheryl starts gleefully poisoning Billy’s milk.
Meanwhile, Billy sneaks in Cheryl’s room. He finds a love letter from his father to Aunt Cheryl. He now doubts her rape story.
“Aunt Cheryl you lie to me.”
“Why would I ever want to lie to you Billy?” she inquires.
Cheryl cuts her hair super short (always a good sign of confident, female mental health *ahem*).
Billy leaves a note under the door that he’s breaking this codependent relationship and going to college.
Meanwhile, Cheryl is talking as we realize it’s to a corpse of Billy’s father in the shrine! Literally his skeleton. How’d she get it from the decapitated (and exploded) father of Billy from the morgue? Gravedigging? No explanation!
Billy’s girlfriend comes to find Billy at his home, but Aunty Cheryl appears and scares the fuck out of me, chasing her around physically. What great, great acting by Auntie Cheryl! She then starts to tenderize Billy’s steak with a mallet. Time to leave, Billy’s girlfriend! But then suckers her in with fake tears and hugs Billy’s girlfriend. Cheryl asks her to grab a second round steak to join them for dinner then proceeds to mallet the back of her head repeatedly! Might I also add that the demented synthesizer score is exquisite here!
Billy passes out after drinking the milk again. Billy shows a note that proves Billy’s mother was Aunt Cheryl! “Now you’re going to leave me the same way he threatened to leave me.”
How did Billy’s father’s wife not know it was Aunt Cheryl’s baby? That’s kind of something a wife notices, a sister or other woman having your baby surrogate for you. Bit of a gapping plot hole the size of a newborn baby but I’m too invested to care about that now!
Billy’s girlfriend’s parents are now wondering where the hell she is. Cheryl don’t know! Nobody’s home upstairs!
A neighbor friend pokes around, suspecting Cheryl is crazy.
Cheryl then frighteningly forces Billy to drink more milk against his will. She blames Billy for everything and calls him a “messy baby” for spilling his milk. She licks milk off his neck.
Oh! Billy’s girlfriend wakes up from the basement. Still alive I see. Good for her! But all she finds is Billy’s father’s corpse. And Billy’s father’s head in a vat! (I guess so he could give her head from time to time! I kid. It’s actually very unnerving.) Furthermore, whose skeleton corpse was it earlier then with full skull intact, if his Billy’s father’s head is also in a vat? And furthermore still, his head was crushed/stabbed through in the beginning unrecognizable plus it was exploded on top of that! The state of this head in a vat is ‘wrong headed’ is all I can add.
The nosy neighbor runs outside but Auntie Cheryl emerges from the breeze in the trees quite frighteningly and slices her belly open with a machete. This performance is legitimately more frightening than Jack Nicholson in The Shining or Kathy Bates in Misery. No kidding. No joke. Check it out for yourself!
Billy’s girlfriend now wanders alone (still alive, good for you!). Auntie Cheryl in the dark springs out at her! But the cop that refuted Detective Carlson earlier arrives… and summarily has his hand cut off and neck slaughtered.
“Here slut! Here slut!” Auntie Cheryl goads at Billy’s girlfriend. But she escapes and Cheryl gives chase!
Cheryl hunts her down and pushes her into a lake. Cheryl physically jumps on her into the water after her and tries to drown her, but Billy’s girlfriend drowns her back! (Smart thinking!). But Cheryl overpowers her and smashes her head with a rock repeatedly calling her “slut!“
This is some vicious shit.
Billy hears his GF scream and stumbles downstairs still half drugged. He tries to call the police but oh now, Cheryl’s creepy, bumpy arm extends her feline digitalis and hangs up the phone on Billy. She chokes Billy with the phone wire. Then kisses him. Then slaps the hell into him like a right maniac. God what a frightening performance. Third time I’ve said it.
This may be a #1 underrated female horror performance in all of horror cinema!
Billy stabs her out of sheer self preservation. She twitches on the floor (still acting! Damn, the best!)
As for Billy, I feel so sorry for this boy. He’s fucked for life. He calls the police…
Cheryl darts up, pulls the knife out of her shoulder and slashes at Billy with every ounce of her being. Billy grabs the fire poker. Cheryl lunges ready to kill her pride and joy, only to impale herself. Billy is so torn up.
Cheryl dies better than any actor in a Shakespearean play, maybe in recorded history. I wish I were joking. I’m moved and disturbed by this performance to my core.
Cleanup denouement. Detective Joe Carlson’s here to gloat, I guess. Suddenly Coach is here too? Guess that’s who he called. Detective Carlson is ready to shoot Coach still on his gay triangle theory. Billy’s girlfriend however says check the basement for Cheryl’s victims. It was HER! Carlson doesn’t believe it still and pistol whips Coach. And he points at Coach, holy shit he’s gonna shoot him! Billy knocks the gun outta Carlson’s hand. Coach wrestles Carlson. Billy grabs Carlson’s gun and points it at the cop Carlson. Billy blasts Carlson three times in brutal, big bloody hole fashion.
Luckily in the cut we see the alternate theorized cop, familiar actor, is still alive and bore witness to Billy shooting Carlson in self defense (kind of).
Wow. Prologue scroll indicates Billy was acquitted on grounds of temporary insanity. Fair ball! And he attends school with his girlfriend. Happy endings! Just wow!
Night Warning Uppers:
Susan Tyrrell’s performance is so frightening and visceral that I was actually afraid watching her act. No artifice. No illusions. Just belief in this character and her terrifying motivations and unwinding madness. It is one of the greatest performances in acting period. It is a study of a character beyond anything I’ve seen in casual ‘80s cinema. Better than anything I’ve seen get an academy award for since I was born onwards. Mesmerizing!
Bo Svenson was at his prime here in a role like this. 1970s cops have an aura that is confirmed in movies like that or Popeye Doyle in The French Connection. Just tearing through society, like moral monsters, using their leverage to keep the town safe by any means necessary. He also gives a powerful performance as another villain.
Billy also did a great job as the innocent doe who is entangled in webs he doesn’t understand.
The psychology of this story was fascinating and a real study of a mentally disturbed person who was so alone she tore others apart to stay together as a whole herself. I must rewatch it several times to really understand every ounce of marrow in this one.
Night Warning Downers:
What’s with the title of this film? Originally titled “Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker” which equally doesn’t really nail what this movie is about. But it’s debateable. Perhaps just making it eponymously called “My Aunt Cheryl” or maybe something about codependency like “Letting Go” or something to that effect might have set the table better when this first came out. Nah, “Letting Go” sounds too ‘90s. All these titles in the ‘80s for horror often strived for a literary pretension back then that makes me laugh in an endearing way in retrospect.
The head in a vat/exploded head/crushed-stabbed through head of Billy’s father was not consistent and makes my head hurt thinking about it in many ways. But it’s a minor point.
Also, the dynamic of who birthed Billy still leaves me scratching my head. Did Cheryl give birth and her sister and Billy’s father just steal the baby and raise it? Did they learn Cheryl was crazy and out of Christian duty raise her away from Crazy Sister Cheryl and not give it up for adoption? Or is Cheryl just crazy and jealous of her sister’s family and obsessed about Billy’s handsome Father? Not clear.
Summary:
Night Warning has great acting, great psychology, and is fully recommended. It’s even free on YouTube on occasions but the quality is not great. I’ve heard that a new 4K UHD edition will be coming soon from Severin Films, and I would hardily recommend getting a copy of that. I know I will!
That performance of Susan Tyrrell deserves full restoration! Night Warning does qualify as underground as well I would say. In the context of it being a hardnosed ‘70s gritty film, with gay underworld subplots, the racism, homophobia, sexism, the frightening performance and psychology and hints of incest, it was never a film you could watch with the whole family. Unless you’re the Manson Family.
AKA: Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker, Nightmare Maker, Thrilled to Death, Momma’s Boy, The Evil Protégé, Mrs. Lynch, Alerta Noturno, À la Limite du Cauchemar, Pelko, O Protegido do Mal, Мамин син, Ночное предупреждение, Amenaza en la noche
Directed by: William Asher
Written by: Steve Breimer, Alan Jay Glueckman, Boon Collins
Produced by: Steve Breimer, Eugene Mazzola
Cinematography by: Robbie Greenberg
Editing by: Ted Nicolaou
Music by: Bruce Langhorne
Special Effects by: Allan A. Apone
Cast: Susan Tyrrell, Jimmy McNichol, Bo Svenson, Bill Paxton
Year: 1981
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 36min
Studio: Royal American Pictures
Distributor: Comworld Pictures, Citadel Films, Vestron Pictures, Severin Films
