Review #2618: Basket Case.
Cast:
Kevin Van Hentenryck (Duane Bradley and Belial Bradley), Terri Susan Smith (Sharon), Beverly Bonner (Casey), Robert Vogel (Hotel Manager), Lloyd Pace (Dr. Harold Needleman), Bill Freeman (Dr. Julius Lifflander), Diana Browne (Dr. Judith Kutter), Joe Clarke (Brian "Mickey" O'Donovan), Ruth Neuman (Duane's Aunt), Richard Pierce (Duane's Father), Sean McCabe (Young Duane), Dorothy Strongin (Josephine), and Kerry Ruff (Detective) Written and Directed by Frank Henenlotter (#2215 - Frankenhooker)
Review:
I figured, if you're going to have a curious type of Halloween, you have to go back to the well of quick budget movies that splatter all over with a certain type of charm all over the guts. Frank Henenlotter had been influenced by exploitation and sexploitation movies that he had seen in his younger days for what he became as an adult, for which he spent many of his days after turning 15 on 42nd Street in New York. When he was doing production on the short film The Slash of the Knife [1976], he met Edgar Ievins, a producer, and the two tried to come up with something that could be done on some money. He walked around Times Square and wrote the screenplay from that atmosphere that he experienced (incidentally, he was influenced enough by Herschell Gordon Lewis to where he dedicated the film to him). Various cast members had either worked previously on Slash or were students of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (according to Van Hentenryck, they had to be careful in rehearsals, as they had no times for re-takes). The creature effects and makeup were created by Kevin Haney and John Caglione. The film opened on New Year's Eve of 1981 on limited release before getting a theatrical release by Analysis Film Releasing in April 1982 (complete with blowing up the 16mm print to 35 mm). For the most part, the film was a decent hit on the various circuits it made, for which it served as a midnight movie in various places. Two sequels to the film followed in 1990 and 1991, each with Van Hentenryck in the lead role. Basket Case was restored and selected for preservation by the Museum of Modern Art in 2017, which Henenlotter noted was a moment of humility and pride for him.
When the film was at the backends of the Cannes Film Festival, the film did earn one noted quote about its quality from film critic Rex Reed*, who was asked by someone what he thought of the film, for which he said it "is the sickest movie I've ever seen", which earned a place on movie posters (whether the quote was actually said by Reed as a spur of the moment or was arranged is up to you, but a few words that don't initially sound like an endorsement, well, sure sounds like something...). There's a bit of the eternal misfit in all of us. The joker, the smoker, the one that lurks in our mind and lurks in the shadows. It just happens to be down and dirty in the atmosphere that you just don't see or feel now. It isn't a curious thriller involving a Siamese twin such as say, Sisters (1972) because it instead is one hell of a slasher with tremendous gusto of violence that happens to be darkly amusing in what it shows in the dynamic of these two beings that truly cannot live without the other. It's a bond drenched in blood that probably has more heart in it than one might want to admit, even when considering one side likes to scream (and telepathically communicate, naturally) more often than not. Van Hentenryck and his awkward stiffness does make for a fairly compelling lead among a sea of offbeat one-note characters that makes his torment of outsider/killer all the more harrowing in its naturalness (to a point) in the face of something that could've easily been straight evil or, well, even more campy. It may be a madhouse, but you get your shots of puppet/stop-motion mayhem that makes for the appropriate "oooh" when the time comes to show it, even if its route of getting there is a curved road of amusement (i.e. it's not enough to have a revenge plot, one must dump information in a drunken stupor as well). With a production budget of less than $50,000 that led to a few obvious low-budget quirks, you've got a winner with this film if you stomach what it wishes to hustle in demented sleaze filled with the energy and audacity to show a man and his basket go all the way possible in man-made horrors for devastating effect.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
*Honestly, given how full of shit Reed was at times, this is pretty funny.
Linked: Basketcase (1982) Monster Madness Sigh. I miss the old Monster Madness. Unrelated note: it's time for Ravenous!
