Basket Case (1982)

We are back to the grimy New York of the early 1980s. Times Square is sleazy with sex shops, low rent hotels and seedy cinemas. Somewhere running around in the city is The Exterminator, Ms 45 and Charles Bronson with a death wish.

Duane Bradley arrives in New York with plenty of cash and a locked basket. He checks into a cheap hotel and inside the basket is his deformed and horrid Siamese twin brother, Belial separated forcefully by some doctors under their father's order when they were young. Both brothers have a telepathic link and Duane knows that Belial is also insanely jealous which he discovers when he strikes up a friendship with a nurse.

Belial resents being cut off from his normal looking brother and seeks revenge against the doctors responsible by killing them horribly. He even split his own father in two.

Basket Case is regarded as a low budget camp classic horror. It has laughably bad effects with cheap stop motion and the acting is atrocious. I would like to call it wooden but I have no desire to insult forests.

The director adds gore to keep the horror fans happy and also there is plenty of screaming which eventually gets to be irritating. In fact once you realise there is a death coming, you gather that the screaming is just padding to extend the length of the movie.

I liked the comical hotel manager trying to keep order in his dive but having endured this film you kind of wonder why it is held in such a high regard. It fails as a horror film because its not scary.

Fmovies: A man basically carries around kill hungry creature that consumes so much food and people! Shockingly brutal, bizarre and powerful performance by Duane Bradley (Kevin Van Hentenryck) along with everyone else!

After first glancing at the article of this movie in the book "Cult Movies 2" some 25 years ago, I finally watched Basket Case today having bought the VHS from a used video store about a month ago. It concerns conjoined twins Duane (Keven Van Hentenryck) and Belial (which is a mixture of a puppet and stop-motion animation) and their revenge against the doctors that tore them apart. There's also a romance between Duane and one of the doctors' receptionist, Sharon (Terri Susan Smith). Written and directed by Frank Henenlotter, Basket Case is obviously low-budget and amateurish with cheesy moments to spare especially whenever Belial attacks someone. But it can also provide some genuine scares and shocks especially when Belial encounters Sharon. So on that note, Basket Case comes highly recommended. P.S. One of the players, a Dorothy Strongin who played Josephine here, died in my current hometown of Baton Rouge, LA, on May 25, 2006.

Basket Case fmovies. A young man carries his deformed, mutant, Siamese twin brother around in a wicker basket on the streets of New York. The loud, yellow, stumpy creature is named Belial and, according to his brother, looks like "a squashed octopus". In the past, they've remained completely sheltered from the world by their compassionate but overprotective aunt. Now, after her recent death, the two decide to hit the big city for the first time and exact their revenge on the doctors that separated them during childhood. What's not to love about this movie? The story and script are thoughtful, scary, and darkly humorous. The character development is flawless: you actually begin to feel sympathy for the grotesque, rubbery entity and his bemused companion. The special effects and gore sequences are extremely well-done, considering the film's microbudget. Also, while the acting is indeed notably bad, that just adds to the camp value of the film.

One interesting side effect of the DVD revolution is that I've been watching lots of movies I haven't seen for YEARS, and some aren't as great as I remember them to be, and others are better. 'Basket Case' was one of THE great late 70s/early 80s low (and I mean looooow!) budget horror movies, linked in my mind with such genre classics as 'Phantasm' and 'Evil Dead'. Watching it now I don't think it's QUITE as great as those two, but it's still enjoyable to watch, and along with 'Re-Animator', 'Motel Hell' and 'Dead And Buried' it's one of the essential horror movies of the 1980s. Look, it isn't perfect, the animation sequences in particular are pretty poor, but considering the lack of funds, it's creepy, bizarre and doesn't take itself very seriously, and Kevin VanHentenryck (Duane) actually gives a very good performance. Writer/director Frank Henelotter went on to make the even better 'Brain Damage' and 'Frankenhooker' (as well as two sequels which I haven't seen) but sadly hasn't made a movie in the last ten years. Henelotter mixes horror and comedy as good as, if not better than, vintage Sam Raimi and Stuart Gordon in my opinion. Why isn't he making movies?! Why doesn't SOMEONE give him a million dollars and freedom to make anything he wants?? I really, really hope he makes a comeback soon. Until then check out 'Basket Case', it's cheap, nasty and LOTS of fun!

It's rare to see a horror film that is actually "good", featuring an original premise and decent acting/plot. Some films should have been "classics" because they feature both, but are mocked years later for their horrible special effects (think about it - most "classic horror films" feature human or human-like villains e.g. slasher flicks and "Rosemary's Baby"). Well, Basket Case is no exception.

The premise is one of the most original, then and probably still now. Duane carries his brother Belial around in a basket, and the two are trying to find and murder the doctors who separated them. It reminds one of "Freaks", with the deformed Belial and his brother Duane as anti-heros of sorts, getting revenge on the "normal" people that treated them so cruelly. A flashback to Duane's and Belial's separation and events in the film actually made me feel sorry for both (Duane because Belial won't let him have any time or romance for himself, and Belial because everyone is deathly afraid of him but his brother).

For a low budget '80s flick, Belial actually looks really good for the most part; though the first few deaths in the movie where he remains invisible are still more effective. When Belial jumps at some people it looks sort of funny, but when he is stationary (must've been a better puppet), he looks either frightened or damned frightening. Belial also makes some thankfully short appearances as a decent stop-motion animation.

It should also be noted that the lower quality grainy film stock does add to the seediness of the film and its bad-side-of-New York setting to give it a more creepy and realistic quality. There's a fairly high amount of gore, and the events leading up to the ending are eerie and shocking (it should be noted that, though it has some weak comedic aspects, this film isn't the intended horror/comedy its sequels are). Some of the acting isn't the greatest, but that's to be expected. After all, this is a horror film, and after all, it's low budget. Knowing that just makes this film seem all the more classic.