Also released as
- Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker
- Night Warning
- Momma's Boy
- The Evil Protege
- Thrilled to Death
- À la limite du cauchemar
- Mrs. Lynch
Filed under
Nightmare Maker
Nightmare Maker is a 1981 American psychological horror film directed by William Asher. It is one of the 72 films on the Director of Public Prosecutions' video nasties list, later dropped without a successful prosecution.
Susan Tyrrell as the aunt, giving a performance far too committed for the film around it.
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Susan Tyrrell gives a performance far too committed for the film around her, and it is the only reason to watch.
A teenage athlete lives with the aunt who raised him. She is not well. When people begin to suspect what is happening in the house, she deals with them.
Tyrrell was an Academy Award nominee and she plays Cheryl as jealous, incestuous and entirely sincere, escalating across the running time to a level nobody else in the cast can meet.
There is a subplot involving a police officer's homophobia that the film treats with unusual directness for 1981, and which is handled better than anything else in it.
Listed and dropped. Known under at least four titles including Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker.
Banned, seized, prosecuted
DPP 72 · listed, then dropped
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Trailer
The sleeves
The same film, sold as a different film in each territory. Click any of them.
Where to watch
Australia
Canada
Germany
UK
USA
Legal sources only. Availability data from JustWatch via TMDB.
Checked 9 Aug 2026
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Adjacent
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Its distributor's executives went to prison over this one. The DPP case that ended in jail sentences.
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