Director: Frank Henenlotter
Screenplay: Frank Henenlotter
Starring: Kevin Van Hentenryck, Annie Ross, Heather Rattray, Kathryn Meisle
Release Date: 1990
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| Guess which one is the hideously mutated freak? |
BASKET CASE 2 picks up mere seconds after the climax of the original BASKET CASE, with Duane Bradley (Van Hentenryck) and his misshapen Siamese twin brother Belial surviving the fall from the window of their room at the Hotel Broslin and being rushed to the hospital, immediately attracting the attention of the media who are both repulsed and fascinated by their story. Before they awaken from their comas and can be charged with the multiple homicides of the doctors who separated them against their will, Duane’s long-lost Aunt Ruth and her apprentice, Susan (Rattray) helps the two escape the hospital and whisks them away to her Staten Island home, a safe house for hideously deformed freaks. After a year in hiding, a nosy tabloid reporter (Meisle) who has written numerous articles exploiting the brothers, eventually discovers the whereabouts of the two fugitives, and will do anything to land her juicy story. Unfortunately for her, the denizens of Granny Ruth’s home will stop at nothing to prevent anyone from hurting or exploiting one of their own.
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| Old Lady Saruman plots with her Orc army outside of Barad-Dur. Oops, wrong movie. |
This movie is a huge leap forward from the original. Shot on location on grimy, grungy 16mm film stock, the original BASKET CASE had a lot working against it, and while I’m usually extremely forgiving of the shortcomings of no-budget filmmaking, there just wasn’t enough there for me to recommend. The acting was beyond atrocious, the relatively simple story took forever to get moving, and the gore was shoddy and unimpressive. The only thing I admired about the movie was the character of Belial who, despite being performed by the most inert, inexpressive lump of plastic in monster movie history, still somehow came across as a sympathetic character. He was the best actor in the movie. BASKET CASE 2, had something closer to an actual budget, and could therefore afford to shoot on 35mm, with actual lighting, and semi-professional actors, and a special effects department.What the movie is lacking is a solid middle section.
The first twenty minutes of the flick do a great job of recapping the primary plot points of the original film, while introducing new elements. Duane has come to enjoy life without Belial constantly at his side, and feels that now that the surgeon’s who separated them are dead, he’s paid his dues. He desperately wishes to run away from his old life and start a new one with Susie. This is made difficult by Belial, who, due to a telepathic link, can read all of Duane’s thoughts, leading to extremely violent outbursts of rage. Aunt Ruth helps Belial vent his rage by letting him murder anyone who attempts to exploit freaks, including an old huckster who runs a phony freakshow behind his shanty out in the woods, claiming to showcase the bones of the deceased Belial. This huckster, by the way, appears to have been played by a genuine crazy motherfucker, something I wouldn’t put past Henenlotter, who regularly uses whoever happens to be standing nearby as actors in his films.
Belial also regularly attends therapy sessions with Ruth who, in the movie’s best line, tells him “Ripping the faces off people may not be in your best interest.” But at Granny Ruth’s home, Belial appears to have found a place where he can fit in, is even welcome. Gabe Bartalos is responsible for the design and make-up of the freaks who populate Granny Ruth’s home, and he really went all-out on this one. The designs on display in this flick are completely off the wall, from a character whose head is misshapen into a half-moon, another whose teeth jut out of his skull like the ever-lengthening keys of a xylophone, to what appears to be a female version of Belial, named Eve. And if you think that name isn’t subtle, you should see the scenes of wicker basket fetishizing (yes, you read that right), and the creepy vaginal imagery on display as Eve peers through the sheets she’s wrapped in when she first meets Belial. There are some weird, deeply disturbing ideas at play in the first act of the film, and they all pay off in the end.
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| A sampling of the inspired make-up work by Gabe Bartalos. |
Unfortunately the second act completely shifts focus to a subplot involving Marcy, a reporter for a sleazy tabloid, and her photographer tracking the two brothers to Granny Ruth’s mansion , spurring the freaks into action to protect not just Belial, but the entire family from the encroaching band of outsiders. This side plot really tried my patience, as it exists for the sole purpose of amping up the body count. Which is great, because this flick could use some gore, but the kills are pretty weak and lacking the red sauce, for the most part. There are a few effective scenes in this segment, like the moment Marcy’s photographer sneaks into the house to snap a picture of Belial and uses the flash bulb on his camera to illuminate a room, revealing a horde of angry freaks bearing down on him. Another neat scene involves a private detective Marcy hires arranging a meeting with Duane at a bar, only to realize too late that all of the bar patrons are actually members of Granny Ruth’s family. And Marcy’s comeuppance, when it finally comes, is capped off with a delightfully gruesome make-up effect that recalls the aforementioned face-ripping line. My problem is that this take up the bulk of the movie, and is a standard, formulaic EC-comics inspired revenge fantasy, where someone really awful gets their just desserts in ironic fashion. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not nearly as interesting as the freaky shit going on with Duane and Belial’s love lives.
Which brings us to the final fifteen minutes, when this movie goes completely off the rails into bug-nuts insane territory. Belial and Eve finally get some time to themselves and, yes, we are treated to a graphic sequence of two amorphous freaks getting, ummm…freaky. Doggy-style. But that’s got nothing on the batshit twist where a major character reveals they’ve been pregnant for six years, revealing a razor-toothed penis monster that pops out of a hole in their abdomen, leading to a final scene of brotherly bonding that is utterly twisted and left me with my jaw agape.
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| Go "green" or go to hell! |
It seems like Henenlotter made the movie specifically so he could get to that ending, but didn’t know how to fill in the blanks to get there. Which is a shame, because if the middle portions of this were as strong as the beginning and ending this might have made my list of demented classics I force people to watch in order to gauge whether or not I like them, like DEAD ALIVE, or RE-ANIMATOR. As it is it’s a mild curiosity, a movie with big ambitions that doesn’t aim quite high enough to knock it all the way out of the park.
My Rating:
6.5/10
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