Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker

AKA Night Warning

This 1980s thriller is often described as a exploitation film because the grandiose goal of re-imagining Oedipus Rex as a modern murder mystery misses the mark in many places. The plot revolves around a neurotic aunt harboring incestuous feelings for her nephew who she’s raised since his parents died in an accident, her penchant for murdering people who she thinks gets in her way and her conflict with a latent case detective who’s trying to frame the teen for the murders because he thinks the kid’s gay.

In some ways this movie does capture the tragedy penned by Sophocles and delves deep into Freudian symbolism and the question (at the time) people had on whether overbearing mother figures produced gay sons. For that alone it’s a piece of art history worth looking at to show how far attitudes on that subject changed. But in other ways the script and acting feels like thinly veiled attack on the writers mother and all the adults that surrounded him. I’d say “enjoy” but It’s more apropos to say check it out