How have I never seen Basket
Case? I mean, there are a ton of horror films I haven't seen. I've got a
list as long as my arm of 'classics' and seminal films and just your
bog-standard mainstream releases - but Basket
Case? It feels like I should turn in my horror fan card or something.
Part of the problem is that for years I mixed Basket Case up with Larry Cohen's It's Alive. They're very different
films, but the Davis child was somehow associated with Belial in my head.
Another issue was that none of my friends ever mentioned it - it was never a
"have you seen" or "you gotta see!" kinda film in our
circle. Whatever the reason, my adolescence passed by without Basket Case and it eventually became
that film that I sorta thought I had seen, but couldn't remember much about.
A few years ago I was digging through a list of recommended 80's
horror films and came across a picture of Belial. "Hey," I thought, "this doesn't look at all
like the baby from It's Alive." The synopsis didn't sound familiar either, so
I put it on the mental list of things to catch up with eventually. Chris, Waffle
King recommended it last year and when I saw it was on Shudder I decided this
was the year to watch it.
 |
| Belial. |
 |
| Not Belial. |
The Medium
Shudder via Amazon streaming. The picture quality is as good
as one could expect from streaming a film originally shot on 16 millimeter. In
fact, it was almost too good. This is a movie that feels like it should be watched
on VHS with rolling static lines constantly warring with the tracking buttons
on your remote. Which makes it really weird that there's a fully restored blu-ray
edition available.
The Movie
So let's get this out of the way: Basket Case is not a good
movie. It looks and feels like an
extremely cheap 70's exploitation film, and I mean really cheap. The entire
budget actually makes an appearance on-screen as a wad of cash flashed by the
main character. It's not an exceptionally big wad, either.
 |
| Maybe not as cheap as that guy's shirt. |
And yet... there's something about it. Something endearing
and likeable. That's a pretty weird thing to say about a movie in which a
separated mutant twin goes on a killing rampage.
After an opening scene in which a doctor is stalked and
killed by a horrible monster puppet hand we're introduced to the main
character, Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck). A tall and curly-mopped kid from
upstate New York, he arrives in Times Square with a wicker basket and a wad of
cash. He checks into a seedy, rundown hotel - the Broslin. Some people are
interested in his cash, but pretty much everyone asks the same question as Brad
Pitt's character in Se7en,
"what's in the box?"
 |
| Relax, Frances. |
This is early 80's Time Square, the dirty, porno theater and
prostitutes, junkies and muggers Times Square. You can almost feel the slime
creeping off the screen. This is the most realistic part of the movie as well, you
feel like you are there in this squalid little hotel with the peeling paint,
narrow hallways and thin walls. Nothing else is particularly realistic,
including the contents of the basket. Which happens to be Duane's brother, his
malformed, formerly-conjoined twin, Belial.
 |
| Surprise! |
Now, Belial is a pretty crappy special effect muppet, a
latex monster with very little in the way of mobility, expression or realism in
any way. And yet this stupid thing, this lump of not-flesh, is also weirdly
effective. He can be terrifying, all teeth, black eyes and horrific screech,
and he can be tender or pathetic. I dunno - he shouldn't work at all, you
should laugh every time you see him (and some of the stop motion bits ARE
laughable), but again there's a certain, ephemeral something about the design
that just works.
Duane and Belial aren't just hitting the Big Apple for a
night out, they're on a mission. Seems a number of doctors performed an illegal
and extensive operation to separate them when they were children (seen in flashback
and gruesomely done on a dining room table). Belial ended up being tossed in
the trash, but he's got a psychic connection with Duane, who found him and hid
him away. Now they're out for revenge - well, Belial is, anyway. Duane just
wants his brother to be happy. Of course he wouldn't say no to a little happiness
for himself as well.
 |
| Duane, meet happiness. Don't get attached. |
The central action of the movie - beyond the straightforward
revenge storyline - involves Belial's fear of abandonment. Duane is his only
connection to the outside world, the only way - beyond violence - that he
interacts with it. When Duane meets a girl he likes, this threatens to bring
Belial's world crashing down, and he'll do anything to prevent it from
happening.
 |
| Just two bros having a heart-to-heart in the john. |
The director, Frank Henenlotter has gone on to make a couple
of Basket Case sequels, but you may know him better for Frankenhooker or the crazy-ass Brain
Damage. I've only seen Brain Damage,
but I'll have to check out the others. I'm sure they're low-budget, skeevy and
weird and I won't know why, but I'll end up liking them.
The Bottom Line
It's impossible to praise this movie on any traditional
level. It's poorly lit and shot, the acting is - at best - amateurish, the
story is threadbare, the dialogue hokey, the effects sub-par, the editing... I
think you get the drift. It's even just reprehensible as only a low-budget
exploitation film can be. If you don't care to see a lumpy puppet grinding on a
bloody corpse, then you'll want to pass this one by. However...
Basket Case somehow
rounds that horn of terrible and becomes something worthy of watching. It's
funny, horrifying and even occasionally moving. I ended up really liking it -
in the same sort of way I like CHUD
or Redneck Zombies. It's terrible. I
know it is. And I don't care.
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