Basket Case

MOVIE #1,211 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 10.29.23 50 MOVIES IN 32 DAYS! My entrypoint into the world of Frank Henenlotter was the amazing Frankenhooker, one of the best exploitation movies ever made. His filmography is all too brief, and after today’s final triple feature/trilogy Sunday of Spooky Month, there’s only two other narrative features of his that I need to watch (1988’s Brain Damage and 2008’s Bad Biology). But today is all about the Basket Case saga, beginning with the original from 1982, his feature debut. Shot on 16mm for around 35K and featuring basically an entire cast of non-actor actors, it’s rough around the edges in a way that his subsequent films are not. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

A New York native, he has a knack for capturing the grime and danger of the big city, although in 1982, that probably wasn’t very hard. We see a Times Square that no longer exists: peep-shows and weirdos and thugs and garbage abound. We’re introduced to Duane Bradley, a pensive young man played by an actor named Kevin Van Hentenryck. It’s impossible to discuss any of the Basket Case films without digging into this guy’s career. Outside of a small sampling of credits, he’s really only known for this trilogy (he also cameoed as Duane in Brain Damage). And he is a fascinating actor: at once very wooden and yet also encompassing a sense of bewilderment as if everything he’s experiencing is happening for the very first time. In short, he’s the perfect straight man for the insanity and fantasy of this world.

Basket Case 1 greatly lacks the comedic elements that would feature heavily in all of Henenlotter’s subsequent work, and thus registers more like a typical horror (although the FX, shoddy acting and ridiculous premise still makes it very camp). He utilizes every low-budget trick to make this plot come alive, including some nifty stop-motion…


And about that plot: Duane has a conjoined twin brother named Belial (the little guy above that’s basically just a demonic head and two massive arms) who is surgically removed against both of their wishes during their teen years. They speak to each other telepathically and Belial convinces Duane to go on a killing spree against the three doctors who did the procedure.

There is a sadness here, an almost tenderness, despite the ludicrous overtones. This is especially evident in the very tragic ending, which I do believe gives credence to deeper thematic ideas which one might not normally expect from a cheap exploitation picture like this. The theory that this is some kind of abortion metaphor doesn't hold water at all in my opinion, but I can see this creature as representing man's darker, often hidden away nature, especially in regards to sexuality.

It would take eight years for Henenlotter to craft the two sequels, which are vastly different movies and very much a pair.

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Basket Case is a 1982 American horror film written and directed by Frank Henenlotter in his feature directorial debut. Produced by Edgar Ievins, the film stars Kevin Van Hentenryck as Duane Bradley, a young man who seeks vengeance on the doctors and nurses who performed an unwanted surgery that separated him from his deformed conjoined twin brother Belial, whom Duane hides in a large wicker basket. It was released on April 7, 1982.