Night Warning (1982)

...aka: Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker

...aka: Evil Protege, The

...aka: Momma's Boy

...aka: Mrs. Lynch

...aka: Nightmare Maker

...aka: Thrilled to Death

Directed by:

William Asher

Mix one part psycho-thriller, one part horror film and one part twisted family drama, and you get this fascinating, thoughtful and unfortunately mostly forgotten film that deserves a decent DVD release (and may actually get one here soon from what I've heard). A young couple leave their 3 year old son Billy in the care of the wife's eccentric, lonely, doting sister Cheryl (Susan Tyrrell) while they go out of town. Thanks to the brakes mysteriously going out, the couple end up dying in a grisly car accident and Cheryl is rewarded sole custody of the child. Fourteen years later, Billy (played by Jimmy McNichol, the brother of Kristy) is now a high school senior with a promising future. He has a sweet, pretty, patient photographer girlfriend (Julia Duffy), he's the star player on the basketball team and he's on his way to winning a scholarship to the University of Colorado. Unfortunately for him, his love-hungry and overly strict spinster aunt isn't quite ready to sever the ties and her reasoning seems a little on the perverse side. Not only does she have a crippling fear of being left alone, but she's in fact gotten a little bit too close to Billy over the years. I mean, on a romantic level. Out of desperation, she unsuccessfully tries to seduce a TV repairman and ends up stabbing the man to death in their kitchen, claiming he tried to rape her. She even gets Billy to lie for her when an investigation begins. The cops aren't buying the story, especially when it's revealed that the victim was gay, and was romantically involved with Billy's basketball coach. This sparks the obsessive interest of extremely homophobic police detective Joe Carlson (Bo Svenson), who has it in his mind that Billy actually committed the crime.

Cheryl, pretty much off the hook for the first murder because the cops have no solid evidence of what really happened, concentrates her energies back on her nephew, and goes to great lengths to insure his opportunities don't come to fruition. When her emotional outbursts start to drive him further away, she resorts to slipping drugs into his milk, at first to make him destroy his chances at impressing recruiters at an important basketball game, but eventually to keep him sickly enough to where he won't even want to leave his bed. And just wait and see what happens when she really gets backed into a corner! One of the chief reasons this movie works so well is the go-for-broke central performance from the always interesting Tyrrell. It's an extremely well-modulated performance with the actress going from flighty, slightly overbearing and eccentric to full blown psycho over the course of the movie. She does a great job with the quieter, more subtle moments, such as the eerily romantic looks, gentle touches/kisses and baby talk directed toward her nephew, and does equally well when she's completely out of her mind, chops off her hair and is running around outside swinging a machete like a madwoman. I've read some reviews stating that Tyrrell is overacting here, but I completely disagree with that notion. She does go bat-shit crazy eventually, but the whole time she was easing her way into this final state of hysteria. I was very impressive with her work here. I think it's on par with the performances Bette Davis was delivering in the 1960s in her psycho roles. Great stuff.

In addition, the film moves along at a brisk pace, the script is good, the performances (also including Marcia Lewis as a neighbor, Britt Leach as a level-headed police sergeant and Steve Eastin as the basketball coach/gym teacher) are all good and there's a pretty hectic and violent finale, which I thought was a bit overdone, but I can live with it. Another aspect that makes this film stand out is Svenson's character; Det. Carlson. It's made quite clear he has a deep, almost consuming hatred of homosexuals (as well as being casually racist), which is completely clouding his judgment and getting in his way of him being objective about any evidence he has on hand. Some people seem to be perplexed by the finale, but it makes perfect sense when you think about what self-loathing can do to some people.

Named Best Horror Film of 1982 by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror ("Saturn Awards").

★★★1/2