An early 80’s low budget shocker that has rather fallen by the wayside in recent years and has yet to be rediscovered on DVD – the film earned a certain notoriety due to its placement on the British Censor’s “Video Nasties” blacklist and its subsequent ban in that country.

After all these years the film still languishes in limbo despite news that even the BBFC had ultimately decided to grant the film a certificate if sought – to date apparently the company holding the UK rights (which has subsequently gone under) has never subsequently sought recertification. The film has similarly been forgotten in the US with no official video release for years and no sign yet of a forthcoming turn on DVD either. Butcher Baker itself came as welcome relief form the deluge of masked slashers that seemed to feature in every single film from 1979 till the time Nightmare on Elm Street provided a new subgenre to pillage and imitate.

This film was far less a slasher film and fare more a perverse, quirky and rather dark film in the realm of classics from yesteryear such as Die Die My Darling and Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice and Baby Jane. The film focuses on the strange relationship existing between nephew and aunt once his parents die in a car accident caused by a mysterious break failure. Care of the little infant is left in the hands of a doting, gushing aunt who brings up the child with an unhealthy obsessive interest. Things start to spiral out of control one night when the ageing and demented Aunt Cheryl makes a pass at a handyman (who later turns out to be gay) and attacks him once he spurns her advances. She claims rape to the police who have a hard time swallowing her story and suspect nephew (Jimmy NcNichol) of killing the handyman who they claim was his lover.

The plot thickens further as the crazed aunt becomes more and more determined to control her nephew’s life and to keep him from becoming independent of her. Dark secrets are revealed along the way to a gruesome climax. This is a noteworthy shocker for a number of reasons; firstly its rather daring plot involves a heavy hint of an incestuous relationship which may have partly been the cause for its UK ban. Secondly it contains remarkably homophobic views that would seem unacceptable by today politically correct standards. However these themes and the little gore that the film contains should hardly have been enough to warrant a countrywide ban…surely.

Butcher Baker is a far more interesting film than most horror films being churned out in 1980 – well worth a look, especially for genre fans and has Susan Tyrell to thank for its success as the film works largely due to her larger than life performance. Incidentally whatever happened to Jimmy and Kristy McNichol, two top young actors who seemed to fade away from the scene just as they entered adulthood?