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tonight's feature: Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1982) on Shudder
(SPOILERS?) Holy shit this was a dark movie. This kid Billy (Jimmy McNichol) lives with his aunt Cheryl (Susan Tyrrell) after the opening scene where his parents die in a violent car crash. Aunt Cheryl, who actually turns out to be his psychotic mother, likely killed his adopted parents (her sister and brother in law) by cutting their brake lines. Oh and she also murders his real dad, who's body is still in the basement. She is also deeply in love with Billy and doesn't want him to go off to college.
When aunt Cheryl tries to put the moves on the tv repairman, she kills him when she gets rebuffed, yet says he was trying to rape her. Billy shows up as the murder is going down and the dirty cop thinks Billy is the culprit since A. the tv repair guy was gay B. Billy's basketball coach was the tv repair guy's lover and C. Billy is also probably gay, so therefore: gay love triangle. Side note: a young Bill Paxton plays the shithead bully named Eddie in this movie.
By the end everyone is getting stabbed, hacked, machete'd or shot through the torso and you just sit there going, "well goddamn," muttering to yourself. I did not see that coming. If it wasn't for the constant insane mommy dearest putting drugs in Billy's milk and the corpse and pickled head of the dad in the secret part of the basement this movie felt like it could have been an ABC after school special about everyone being intolerant of gays. But it ends up like some Oedipus serial killer bad cop insanity. More disturbing and demented than scary, a bit over the top for a Halloween season jam. 6 gallons of tainted milk in the fridge out of 10.
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