Directed by television and genre veteran Ted Post (The Baby), this sun-baked Phoenix thriller sits in a fascinating middle ground—too stylish and dark for standard network television, yet abruptly dumped onto NBC as a Movie of the Week before finding a strange second life on home video via notorious British distributors like VIPCO. Far from being mere trash, it’s a meticulously cast, deeply atmospheric piece of 1980s suspense craft featuring a powerhouse ensemble chewing up the Arizona desert scenery.
The story kicks off in sun-bleached Phoenix, where unfulfilled socialite Kathy Atwell (Jaclyn Smith) is trapped in a loveless, mercenary marriage to her wealthy, cruel industrialist husband, Wendell (Mike Connors). Looking for an escape, Kathy carries on an affair with Steve Fulton (James Franciscus), an executive at Wendell’s company.
When Steve impulsively murders Wendell right in front of Kathy, she is dragged kicking and screaming into a desperate cover-up. Steve stashes the corpse in a deep-freeze, planning to impersonate Wendell on a business flight and abscond with a million dollars stashed in an airport locker. But when Kathy wakes up the next morning, Wendell’s body has vanished from the freezer, replaced chillingly by the corpse of Steve. Enter police detective Lt. Donner (Robert Mitchum), and the movie detonates into a dizzying chain of double-crosses, psychological torment and a blistering, high-tension climax.
Plus — Fritz Weaver and Sybil Danning!
The film was shot by acclaimed cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond, whose stunning resume includes masterpieces by Nicolas Roeg like Don’t Look Now and The Man Who Fell to Earth. Richmond’s striking use of light left a permanent mark off-screen as well—he and Jaclyn Smith fell in love during production and married the following year.
Funded by the German production company Cine Artists GmbH and featuring a largely British crew, Avco Embassy Pictures originally intended Nightkill for a major U.S. theatrical run in the fall of 1980. However, after an NBC executive caught a screening, the network swooped in and bought the rights for a prime-time broadcast, airing it on December 18, 1980, while international markets (like Turkey and Sweden) received proper theatrical releases. When the film finally hit home video in the UK via VIPCO, it was aggressively—and misleadingly—marketed as a slasher film, complete with iconic cover art of Jaclyn Smith screaming in a shower.
You can watch this on YouTube.
