Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker Review (Film, 1982) #31DaysofHorror
content warning: blood, sexual assault (discussed), homophobia, nudity, violence against women, violence against children, inappropriate relationships with minors
Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker is a campy horror film about homophobia and murder.
14 years ago, Billy’s parents died in a tragic car accident. Now 17 years old, Billy lives with his obsessive Aunt Cheryl who doesn’t want him to ever grow up and leave home. She also makes inappropriate passes at him while treating him like an eternal toddler and her husband at the same time. Jump forward a few days and Cheryl murders the local TV repair man, accuses him of attempted rape, and puts Billy in the crosshairs of a homophobic police detective.
This is the substance of the film, not a spoiler. The detective makes Billy the number one suspect after finding out the TV repair man was married to the basketball coach at the high school. He doesn’t believe that anyone would try to do anything to Aunt Cheryl, which leads him to believe that Billy is gay and murdered his older lover, who was married to his basketball coach, who groomed him to be a homosexual just like him and his deceased partner. Homophobia is the plot.
The most shocking part about this film is that it’s only 39 years old at this point. Every time I see a horror film just casually toss out slurs from the 1980s, it blows my mind. This film is three years older than me and I grew up hearing this kind of language and homophobic rhetoric. Not using the f slur and claiming all gay people are diseased aberrations on society is a pretty new development in the span of American history.
It’s a strange clash of elements. Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker is one of the last films in that first wave of the Psycho-Biddy subgenre. Psycho-Biddy films came to prominence with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. They feature women of a certain age being over the top murderous monsters.
Aunt Cheryl is Susan Tyrell’s turn to do whatever she wants to scare an unsuspecting audience and she understands the assignment. This is Bette Davis in The Anniversary levels of unhinged. She does more work than anyone else to pull together all these disparate plot threads.
There’s one specific scene where Aunt Cheryl confronts Billy about his sexuality, begging him to not be sick like “those people” and just stay at home. Once she starts in on the homophobia, the dominos start to fall. The coach has to resign from his job. Other students bully Billy for being the coach’s favorite. The police start staking out the school and house for evidence that Billy is gay. Meanwhile, Billy’s just trying to find time to see his girlfriend when Aunt Cheryl isn’t home so she can’t stop them from having fun.
Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker is a time capsule of recent history. To throw it on a timeline, A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge was criticized for being too gay in 1985 and that film was subtext. The critical response back then focused on how great the acting was for a horror film, not how shocking the language was or the absurdity of a murder case hinging on trying to out a teenager.
Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker is streaming on Shudder.