This is a real oddity of a film, dealing with insanity and family madness in the vein of all those '60s shockers starring Bette Davis, such as WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?. This film features a barnstorming central performance from Susan Tyrrell as an absolute nutter of an aunt, who has sexual designs on her own nephew and who bumps off anyone who gets in the way. Tyrrell hams it up and screams and shouts with relish, shearing off her hair at one point to make her look even more wacky; this is an extreme physical performance and as such, Tyrrell is very disturbing in the part. You can't imagine anyone else playing it just like her. Is the actress mad too? You'd think so on the strength of her acting here.The first hour of the plot is very slow and sedate with only a bloody knife murder to recommend it to horror fans (the subsequent blood-on-beast shots, apparently a pathological trigger for psychopaths, gained it a notorious 'video nasty' classification and a subsequent banning in the UK). Director William Asher was more at home with goofy '60s flicks like MUSCLE BEACH PARTY and he seems at home when dealing with small-town American life as he does here. However, the last twenty minutes of the film add a Grand Guignol punch to the proceedings as things become extremely over the top and the film turns into your typical slasher fare. People are stabbed, shot to pieces, impaled on pokers and have their limbs lopped off; there's also a pickled head in a jar which is always a fun plot ingredient for the horror film. Gore fans are sure to get their money's worth in this bloody climax which makes up for the slow-moving first hour.Compared to Susan Tyrrell, the rest of the cast are a little dull; certainly the young male lead seems wooden in comparison. There is one sympathetic male character, a basketball coach played by Steve Eastin, but he's hardly in the movie. B-movie fans may spot Bo Svenson, star of the original WALKING TALL; here he's another enforcer-of-the-law, except this time in the shape of an extremely nasty and homophobic small-town detective. My money's on Svenson as the real villain of the film; at least Tyrrell has madness as an excuse. Film fans may also spot Bill Paxton in a very small role as a bully; hell, this was even before his bit part in THE TERMINATOR! As for the film, well, it certainly packs its punch and delivers a powerful climax; at least it achieves some moments of true horror, and the same can't be said for many an inferior imitator.

If ever a horror movie could be accused of throwing in everything but the proverbial "kitchen sink", "Night Warning" is that movie. With homosexual bashing, a nod to "Psycho", and a furious mother - son fixation, this film doesn't quit till all the cliché's are covered. The opening has a rather impressive car crash, that sets a somewhat intricate story in motion. Susan Tyrrell is in full deranged mode, and Bo Svenson is despicable as the investigating lieutenant. His entire investigation is built on "air castles' with homosexual overtones. Eventually the wheels of sanity come off, and Tyrrell gives a memorable performance that by itself carries the film into above average territory. - MERK

Susan Tyrrell's off-the-charts lunacy highlights this psychological thriller about an unstable aunt who can not accept the fact that the nephew she has been raising as a son(his parents were killed in a car crash which resulted from tampered brakes, obviously caused by Tyrrell's Cheryl Roberts)is about to "leave her behind" for college on a basketball scholarship and this obsession drives her to do whatever it takes(including killing anyone that might threaten her goal of keeping her boy Billy home)necessary to not have that happen. Bo Svenson is a homophobic, spiteful, belligerent, abusive detective, Joe Carlson, who has convinced himself that Billy is behind the murder of a mechanic stabbed to death viciously by Cheryl when her sexual advances were denied. Carlson considers Billy a homosexual because his basketball coach was reputed to be and believes that's part of the reason why the teenager murdered the mechanic. It's such an absurd theory and anyone who challenges it is instantly shot down, including Sergeant Cook(Britt Leach; the store owner who "gets the hammer" in SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT)who, correctly so, considers Cheryl's testimony of rape-self defense as faulty. A cute and very young Julie Duffy(NEWHART)is Billy's girlfriend, Julie, who is later victimized by Cheryl. Marcia Lewis is the nosy, snooping neighbor, Margie, who gets too close to the truth and pays a major price. Jimmy McNichol is the handsome basketball stud with a babyface who is the apple of Tyrrell's psychotic eye.Cheryl poisons Billy's milk which causes him to collapse in a big game with scouts there to seem him play. She continues to do so with Billy bedridden. Cheryl cuts her hair and we actually see the mental deterioration to the point where she's simply stark, raving mad. Wielding a machete, butcher knife, or meat tenderizer, Tyrrell's willing to go to extreme lengths to keep Billy all to herself. Perhaps the ending, where Svenson holds Billy at gunpoint despite the evidence of Cheryl's guilt all around him, is a bit too much(so Carlson's a mean, stubborn sonofabitch, we get it), but I imagine the final result will have many viewers applauding with jubilation. But, make no mistake about it, Tyrrell is the whole show, her deranged theatrics are a sight to behold. This movie provides the rare chance to see Duffy naked and she's a beauty.

This film has a reputation that is really greater than the sum total of the film itself. While it is quite an unusual take on a pretty standard plot idea of a young man who was raised by a domineering mother-figure with a fair amount of sexual tension in the relationship, it doesn't really stand out in any particular way. The unique nature of the film is that the young man, typically the twisted character in other films of this type, is the most normal character here, and other characters around him are more than peculiar.But, other than that, the rest of the production is pretty average, meaning the acting, direction, plot development, effects, editing, etc, are all rather pedestrian and not really interesting. What will keep your interest is the gradual revealing of the main plot point of: What really was the boy's history?Of particular offense is the police character as played by Bo Svenson, a dogmatic, gay-bashing moron, who is less sympathetic than the actual killer, but who gets his just rewards at the end. The final 'epilogue' gives the viewer a feeling that this was based on a true story. It wasn't.Also of note, Julia Duffy, as the boy's girlfriend, has a topless scene, perhaps the only one she's ever done on film.