Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker

Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981) is William Asher's psychological horror, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Aunt Cheryl has raised her orphaned nephew Billy as her own son, and she will let no one take him from her — not a girlfriend, not a coach, not anyone.

Billy is grown now, with a girlfriend named Julia and a shot at a college scholarship in Colorado. To Cheryl, that's the end of everything. Susan Tyrrell plays her teetering between smothering tenderness and full breakdown, and when a handyman shows up to fix a faucet, a jealous fit ends in murder. Cheryl tells Billy she fought off a rapist and pressures him to back her story to the police. From there it's Detective Carlson, who has decided Billy himself is the killer and chases him with a zeal soaked in prejudice.

For years the film circulated under a pile of alternate titles and landed on Britain's "video nasties" list. It's revived now for Tyrrell's fearless, unhinged turn and an early role from Bill Paxton. Harsh, deeply uncomfortable and smarter than its lurid cover suggests — a treat for fans of forgotten eighties horror. Stream Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981) online on iFILM.