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[Horror Queers Podcast] It’s Cop vs Gays in Queer Positive Slasher ‘Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker’

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Vagina Boxes.

Trace and I are still making our way through Pride Month! After kicking things off with the evolution of the gay slasher with Hellbent/Killer Unicorn and a tribute to trailblazer Clive Barker and his final directorial effort Lord of Illusions, things take a timely turn this week. We’re tackling little-seen Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (aka Night Warning), a rare queer positive slasher that also has a lot to say about the relationship between the police and the queer community.

In director William Asher‘s 1981 video nasty, Aunt Cheryl (Susan Tyrell) has a possessive obsession with her nephew Billy (Jimmy McNichol). Their unhealthy relationship becomes even more problematic when Cheryl murders a man and Billy becomes the prime suspect in the eyes of homophobic Detective Carlson (Bo Svenson), who fixates on the teenager. Will Billy and his indestructible “girlfriend” Julie (Julia Duffy) survive both the relentless cop and his serial killer Aunt Cheryl?

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple PodcastsStitcherSpotifyiHeartRadioSoundCloudTuneInAcastGoogle Play, and RSS.


Episode 78 – Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker aka Night Warning (1981)

Pride month continues with the most queer positive slasher film most people have never seen!

We’re joined by fellow queer podcasters Andrew and Matty, aka FriGay the 13th, to unpack the delirious madness of Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (aka Night Warning). This exploitation/video nasty tends to make waves for Susan Tyell’s incestuous relationship with her twinky son, but the real topic here is the film’s true villain: the homophobic cop who hates gays.

In addition to its bombastic Final Destination 2-like opening car crash and William Asher’s workmanlike direction, the group debates Tyrell’s artistic choices, sports in slashers, and twinks vs daddies. Plus: Andrew is obsessed with Julie the indestructible girlfriend, and Trace wonders who has a machete lying around the house? Also: do vaginas have flaps like boxes?

Finally, and most significantly, a serious talk about how Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker reflects real life tensions between the queer community and the police and how the film’s odd double release pattern put it on opposite sides of the AIDS epidemic.


Cross out Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re closing out Pride Month by calling the corners with quintessential teen girl/outsider film, The Craft!

– Joe & Trace

P.S.  Check out last month’s article on 1986’s extremely upsetting In a Glass Cage. You can find all of the old articles here

P.P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon to access bonus episodes! June is Creature Features month, so we have new episodes on Deep Rising and Arachnophobia, as well as an audio commentary on Snakes on a Plane!

Joe is a TV addict with a background in Film Studies. He co-created TV/Film Fest blog QueerHorrorMovies and writes for Bloody Disgusting, Anatomy of a Scream, That Shelf, The Spool and Grim Magazine. He enjoys graphic novels, dark beer and plays multiple sports (adequately, never exceptionally). While he loves all horror, if given a choice, Joe always opts for slashers and creature features.

Podcasts

Stephen Graham Jones on Final Girls, Small Town Horror, and ‘The Angel of Indian Lake’ [Podcast Interview]

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What does it mean to be a final girl? Can it really be as straightforward as staying alive until the sun rises? Picking up the knife, the machete, the abandoned gun and putting down the killer? Or is it something more? Could it mean stepping into a position of power and fighting for something larger than yourself? Or risking your life for the people you love? Could it be that anyone who bravely stands against an unstoppable force has final girl blood running through their veins?

Jennifer “Jade” Daniels has never seen herself as a final girl. When we first meet the teenage outcast in Stephen Graham JonesMy Heart is a Chainsaw, she’s lurking on the fringes of her her small town and educating her teachers about the slasher lore. She knows everything there is to know about this bloody subgenre, but it takes a deadly twist of fate to allow the hardened girl to see herself at the heart of the story. In Don’t Fear the Reaper, the weathered fighter returns to the small town of Proofrock, Idaho hoping to heal. But a stranger emerges from the surrounding woods to test her once again. The final chapter of this thrilling trilogy, The Angel of Indian Lake, reunites us with the beloved heroine as she wages war against the Lake Witch for the soul of the town. She’ll need all the strength her many scars can provide and the support of the loved ones she’s lost along the way.

Today, Shelby Novak of Scare You to Sleep and Jenn Adams of The Losers’ Club: A Stephen King Podcast sit down to chat with the award-winning author about the concluding chapter in his bestselling Indian Lake trilogy. Together they discuss the origins of Jade’s beloved nickname, life in a small town, complicated villains, and all those horror references that made the first two novels fan favorites. Jenn reveals how many times she cried while reading (spoiler: a lot), Shelby geeks out over the novel’s emotional structure, and all three weigh in on their favorite final girls and which entry is the best in the Final Destination franchise.

Stream the heartfelt conversation below pick up your copy of The Angel of Indian Lake, on bookshelves now. Bloody Disgusting‘s Meagan Navarro gives the novel four-and-a-half skulls and writes, “Proofrock has seen a copious amount of bloodshed over three novels, but thanks to Jade, an unprecedented number of final girls have risen to fight back in various ways. The way that The Angel of Indian Lake closes that loop is masterful, solidifying Jade Daniels’ poignant, profound legacy in the slasher realm.”

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