Basket Case 3: The Progeny

MOVIE #1,213 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 10.29.23 50 MOVIES IN 32 DAYS! The final installment of the Basket Case trilogy might just be the best (it’s definitely the grossest and features the most bonkers kill scenes). I won't be ranking them as I would recommend watching them all as a triple feature (they’re all 90 minutes on the dot!). Part 3 features a storyline built around Belial and his mate Eve’s brood of 12 offspring, as the whole crew of freaks make a road down to Georgia to visit Grammy Ruth’s ex-husband, Big Hal, who is a doctor willing to assist with the, umm, complicated birth. Missing from both sequels is the grimey backdrop of 80s NYC, but it’s more than made up for here with some of the most inventive practical FX and design you’ll ever see.

The scene where Eve — who is just a lady version of Belial — gives birth to the dozen mini-Belials is without a doubt probably the most disgusting scene of the trio. But it’s anchored by a comedian named Jim O'Doherty (best known as a writer on sitcoms like Grounded for Life and 3rd Rock from the Sun) who plays Lil Hal, Ruth’s son who is an enormous blob with like six or eight arms…


There is comedy and then there is that (it's actually 4x longer than that clip). I honestly don’t know what he is going for there but… I like it?

But shit really ramps up in the final act when we get back-to-back-to-back kills of three cops at the Sheriff’s department wherein the Sheriff's daughter gets accidentally shot. Van Hentenryck's face at the end is just pure gold…


One of the funniest apsects of these films is Duane's demeanor when brother Belial is doing the killing. He's such a passive yet willing accomplice to these murders and he also has this hilarious "gee whiz" expression on his face. And if that wasn’t enough, Lil Hal constructs a robot suit for Belial that is like a DIY version of the villain from RoboCop 2…


The film ends with the Grammy Ruth and the crew storming onto the set of a Geraldo like talk show and killing the host (“Renaldo” lol) before she delivers a short monologue to the audience about acceptance and how they’re not going to hide any longer. The metaphor is simple and can be stretched out to represent Henenlotter’s entire career (and movies like this in general) as well. But do we really care about metaphors when we’re watching something like this…


And I'm being jokey, but that's also kind of a legitimate question. It's easy for the satirical bent in his pictures to get lost in this insanity, but it is there. And it's the element that elevates him above other shlock peddlers of a similar ilk.

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Basket Case 3: The Progeny is a 1991 American comedy horror slasher film written and directed by Frank Henenlotter. It is the third and final installment of the Basket Case series. It was released on DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in 2004. Synapse Films released a new DVD on October 9, 2012. It was released on October 1, 1991.