Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker 1981
Movie - Review & Info

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Film Review:

Unjustly labeled as a video nasty in the mid 80s, this little gem made it onto the infamous banned lists so hasn't been seen for many years [legally] in the UK which is a great shame as its an intelligent and engaging little psycho slasher.

The film features some seething melodrama, some moments of big knife fun, a cloying atmosphere and a nasty homophobic cop trying to pin a murder on the young hero of the piece. It's also worth tracking down a VHS for the opening car crash scene alone, which has one hell of a decapitation by telegraph pole (later copied in Final Destination 2 imo.) Also for the fans, keep an eye out for very young looking Bill Paxton strutting his stuff. Currently unavailable on DVD!

This is one of those films that sticks with you for a longtime afterwards, its nasty without being exploitative. It's also engrossing - the central premise works well, and the twist ending is both poetic and unanticipated. There is relatively little bloodshed, other than in one or two scenes, and then its all part of the story. Once can only wonder why this was classed a video nasty, given the lack of excess. I'm sure its was more than likely down to the bloody and garish cover.

Excuse the self indulgent reminiscence, this title brings back fond memories. I managed to pick up a copy of this film off the shelf of a tiny little video store in the southwest of Ireland, a town called Clonakilty. The store was called the Video Cavern or something, and had my eyes bulging as there were several nasty titles on the shelves. I haggled with the shop keeper and managed to get three titles for £35 (I was 16 at the time and that was a fortune). It was well before the time of Ex-Rental sales (1988) and the keeper wasn't keen to sell 'em. In the end I got this, Tenebrae and Inseminoid. I was well chuffed, got 'em through customs and felt wickedly devilish as this was a church youth club trip... Sweet.

Video Capture Comments:

This film holds the distinction of being my first ever video capture. The original was very old and washed out and basically I had too much colour and too big a resolution on the .avi. Everything was off the default settings. As a result it will need to be redone to current standards. The high colour can be seen in the captures below.

	Rating Out Of 5:
Video Quality:		2
Cheese:		2
Film:		4
Specificatons: Duration: 01:33:02 (139,544 fr) Video Codec: DivX 5.0 Resolution: 336x256 (1.31:1) [=21:16] Bitrate: 904 kb/s FPS: 25.000