Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981) on Netflix
R19811h 36mHorrorMysteryThriller
Billy Lynch's aunt Cheryl raised him and expects him to stay with her. When a repairman refuses her, she stabs him. A detective becomes convinced that Billy is behind it.
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- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb6.3/106,753 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
Billy Lynch, a high school senior and basketball player, lives with his aunt Cheryl, who took him in after his parents were killed in a car crash. A scholarship to the University of Denver is within reach, but Cheryl expects him to stay home. On his seventeenth birthday she sends him to fetch Phil Brody, a television repairman, to look at their set. That night, when Phil rejects her advances, she stabs him to death and tells the police he tried to rape her. Detective Joe Carlson takes the case and doubts the story. After he learns that Phil was gay and involved with Coach Tom Landers, Carlson decides a love triangle explains the killing and that Billy knows more than he says. He pressures Billy and hounds Tom, while Sergeant Cook, watching the house, suspects Cheryl instead.
Cast
- Caskey Swaimas Phil Brody
- Cooper Nealas Frank
- Kay Kimleras Anna Lynch
- Gary Baxleyas Bill Lynch, Sr.
Show all 13 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Michael Miller, who had directed Jackson County Jail (1976) for Roger Corman, shot the film's opening sequence with cinematographer Jan de Bont before the investors fired him for his slow pacing and replaced him with William Asher, who shot the rest.
- Julia Duffy won the role of Billy's girlfriend Julia over other actresses who auditioned for the part, among them Daryl Hannah and Ally Sheedy.
- Breimer had initially wanted Bill Paxton for the leading role, but instead gave him a minor supporting part as one of Billy's bullying classmates.
- The British Board of Film Classification deemed the film a "video nasty" and refused it a video certificate in 1987 in the United Kingdom, where it was released under the title The Evil Protege.
- Breimer's own curiosity about his biological parents, as he himself was adopted, was the genesis of the story.
