Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (later re-released as Night Warning) is a 1981 American exploitation horror film directed by William Asher, and starring Susan Tyrrell, Jimmy McNichol, Julia Duffy, and Bo Svenson.

Framed as a contemporary Oedipus tale, the plot focuses on a teenager who, raised by his neurotic aunt, finds himself at the center of a murder investigation after she stabs a man to death in their house.

The boy's sexually repressed aunt secretly harbors incestuous feelings for him, while a detective investigating the crime irrationally believes the murder to be a result of a homosexual love triangle.

High school senior Billy Lynch lives with his protective aunt Cheryl, who has raised him since infancy after his parents died in a car accident.

A police detective (and former Marine and Purple Heart recipient), Joe Carlson, is assigned to the case and is skeptical of Cheryl and the alleged rape attempt.

Julia awakens in a secret room in the basement and discovers Chuck's mummified corpse and his severed head in a jar of formaldehyde next to a makeshift shrine.

[4] Several other critics and scholars have noted the plotline of Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker is modeled after Oedipus the King by Sophocles, borrowing the themes of adoption and incestual yearning from a mother to her son.

[2][5] Muir writes that when Billy eventually murders Cheryl in self-defense, he impales her with a fire poker—a phallic symbol—and that, after the struggle, her dead body collapses around his in what resembles a sexual position.

[1] Heuck also views the character of Billy as an inversion of the "final girl" trope, in that "not only is he directly injured by the villains and survives against the odds, he is also extremely attractive, feeding into the unhealthy motivations of those who threaten him within and the desires of the audience watching him outside.

[8] Likewise, Dennis interprets an inversion of social norms in which heterosexual desire as "oppressive and sinister...  Aunt Cheryl opines that "Homosexuals are very, very sick!"

"[8] The question of Billy's potential homosexuality is also noted, though Dennis states that his "sexual identity is not answered by his constant protesting-too-much or by his buddy bond with the coach.

[10] Though the core of the plot was devised by Breimer and Glueckman, Boone, a writer from Vancouver, helped write several sequences, including the opening car crash death of Billy's parents.

[1] McNichol had achieved significant success as a child star, which led to him signing a three-picture contract with executive producer Jerry Weintraub, in which he would receive top billing.

[9] In seeking an actress to portray Cheryl, the unhinged aunt of Billy, producer Stephen Breimer hand-selected Susan Tyrrell based on her performance in Fat City (1972).

[1] Director William Asher instructed Tyrrell to "pull out all the stops," giving her character an exaggerated performance that would help lend the film a "larger-than-life" quality.

[9] Though William Asher is solely credited as director, the film's opening sequence was shot by Michael Miller, who had previously directed Jackson County Jail (1976) for Roger Corman.

[9] The film was first given a small regional release through Comworld Pictures[13] under the title Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker in several cities in Oregon, including Salem and Corvallis, on November 20, 1981.

[24] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Unfolding deftly under Asher's direction, Night Warning combines darkly outrageous humor with persuasive psychological validity.