Nightkill is a 1980 psychological thriller film directed by Ted Post, and starring Jaclyn Smith, Mike Connors, James Franciscus, Robert Mitchum, Fritz Weaver, and Sybil Danning.

The film was produced by the German production company Cine Artists GmbH, in association with American distributor Avco Embassy Pictures.

[7] Kathy Atwell, an unfulfilled Phoenix, Arizona housewife, has been carrying on an affair with Steve Fulton, the assistant of her industrialist husband, Wendell.

Steve stores Wendell's corpse in a freezer before giving Kathy the key to the locker and departing for the airport to take the scheduled flight.

The following morning, Kathy is visited by Lt. Donner, who reveals that Wendell's secretary, Christine, reported him missing after he failed to phone her as planned.

Fleeing outside, she is met by Donner, who reveals that Wendell had hired private investigator Kelly Rodriguez to place recording devices in the house in an attempt to document evidence of her and Steve's affair.

Donner says that he has listened to the recordings, which serve as evidence of Kathy's culpability, and that she could be charged as an accessory to murder for her failure to report Wendell's death to authorities.

While Rodriguez absconds with Wendell's fortune, a severely burned Kathy, clinging to life, manages to phone police for help.

[10] Angus Scrimm was cast in a minor part, having previously starred in Avco Embassy's box-office hit Phantasm (1979), though his scenes were ultimately deleted from the final cut.

[4] Anthony B. Richmond, the cinematographer, had previously shot several films for Nicolas Roeg, including Don't Look Now (1973), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), and Bad Timing (1980).

[18] Additional photography occurred at the Phoenix Zoo,[12] the Salt River Project facility, Sky Harbor International Airport, and rural desert locations in the Tempe area.

[22] Post recalled that the romance between the two had begun shortly into filming, and that Richmond was often inebriated throughout the shoot, causing him to occasionally fumble shots and camera angles.

[24] Nightkill was produced by Cine Artists GmbH in association with distributor Avco Embassy Pictures,[1] who intended it for a U.S. theatrical release in the fall of 1980.

"[7] Ian Jane of DVD Talk wrote: "Nightkill is by no means a great movie but it has its interesting elements, most of which stem around the cast.