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Arrow Video has given director Frank Henenlotter’s 1982 cult classic Basket Case (watch it Here) a couple Blu-ray releases in recent years, and now the company has announced that they’re bringing the film to 4K Uhd for the first time! This release is for the US, the UK, and Canada, and the street date is April 29th. The pre-order link for the UK is Here and the pre-order link for the US and Canada is Here.

Basket Case has the following synopsis: Duane Bradley is a pretty ordinary guy. His formerly conjoined twin Belial, on the other hand, is a deformed, fleshy lump whom he carries around in a wicker basket. Arriving in the Big Apple and taking up a room at the seedy Hotel Broslin, the pair set about hunting down and butchering the surgeons responsible for their separation. But tensions flare up when Duane starts spending time with a pretty blonde secretary,...

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Movie: "Basket Case"

Where You Can Stream It: The Criterion Channel, Tubi, Kanopy, Screambox, Arrow

The Pitch: Backed by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a group of scattered New York artists gathered in a room sometime in 1974 to talk. Their goal was to assemble a loosely organized art collective that would remain in artistic control of its own exhibitions and its own cable TV station. The resulting collective was called Collaborative Projects, or Colab for short. Colab proceeded to put on public variety performances with names like "Income and Wealth Show," "The Batman Show," and "Just Another A**hole Show." The Colab also sponsored a series of feature films that came to be known as the No Wave movement.

Classic Midnite Cult movies were a mini-phenomenon chosen by the public, created only by word of mouth approval. Frank Henenlotter’s wild ‘n’ weird ‘separated at birth’ story is a thematic mashup of horror ideas, plunked down in the middle of America’s sleaze capital, 42nd street in the early 1980s. The audience-pleasing telepathic siblings Duane and Belial look fantastic in a new MoMa restoration, and the extras let the flamboyant director recount a great making-of story. His first distributor decided to ‘fix’ the movie by removing most of the gore!

Basket Case

Blu-ray

Arrow Video USA

1982 / Color / 1:33 flat full frame / 91 min. / Street Date February 27, 2018 / Available from Arrow Video

Starring: Lance VanHentenryck, Terri Susan Smith, Beverly Bonner, Robert Vogel, Diana Brown, Lloyd Pace, Ruth Neuman.

Cinematography: Bruce Torbet

Original Music: Gus Russo

Produced by Arnold H. Bruck and Edgar Levins

Written, Edited and Directed by Frank Henenlotter

A few...

1982. What a year. From The Beast Within to Creepshow to Friday the 13th Part III to Q, it displayed a smorgasbord of fantastical delights for terror consumers. Standing heads (two, to be exact) and shoulders apart from the crowd was Frank Henenlotter’s grimeball debut, Basket Case, a lovely tale of a boy and his twin brother. Who happens to be a monstrous blob. And lives in a basket.

Shot on 16mm for a reported $35,000 Us, Basket Case premiered in Henenlotter’s beloved Times Square, and became a big hit on the grindhouse circuit. This shouldn’t be surprising, as the film is a big, fat, wet kiss to the pre-cleanup New York of the ’80s (think diseases, not Disney). Critics at the time acknowledged the uniqueness of it, but most could not overlook the technical deficiencies or the broad range of performances on display. No matter. Horror fans that...

Basket Case Trilogy

Stars: Kevin VanHentenryck, Terri Susan Smith, Beverly Bonner, Annie Ross, Judy Grafe, Gil Roper | Written and Directed by Frank Henenlotter

Still somewhat of an underground series in mainstream movie-going consciousness (despite what seems like a huge horror-loving fanbase), the Basket Case trilogy finally makes its way to Blu-ray after a shoddy treatment on DVD where here in the UK they have often been resigned to the bargain bins. Thankfully Second Sight have decided to give the franchise its proper due with a trilogy release that will definitely please fans of the films and will hopefully also make a lot of new ones…

Released on DVD, Blu-ray and Blu-ray steelbook (a must-buy for me), the Basket Case Trilogy features the adventures of two brothers, Duane and Belial, well I say brothers but they were originally conjoined twins, separated against their will; with Duane seemingly “normal” and Belial resigned to a life of deformity,...

1982 - 91 mins. - Rated R

D: Frank Henenlotter

C: Kevin Van Hentenryck, Terri Susan Smith, Beverly Bonner, Robert Vogel, Diana Browne 

A man carrying his deformed seamise twin in an oversized basket seeks revenge against the doctors who surgically separated them.

Odd, odd film and not in a good way. To Basket Case's credit, the film certainly commits to creating this sleazy environment filled with oddball characters, but beyond the film's sleazy proceedings, there isn't a single character to care about in sight. Yeah, the viewer knows that the two main characters were forced into a tragic circumstance in regards to the surgical procedure, but their isn't an ounce of sympathy towards either character and what they had to endure, because neither character is likable. Due to that, the revenge that they inflict upon their tormentors lacks satisfaction since we really don't care what happened to them in the first place.

Hitting movie theaters this weekend:

50/50 – Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick

Courageous - Alex Kendrick, Ken Bevel, Kevin Downes

Dream House – Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts

What’s Your Number? - Anna Faris, Chris Evans, Ari Graynor

Movie of the Week

50/50

The Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick

The Plot: A comedic account of a 27-year-old guy’s cancer diagnosis, and his subsequent struggle to beat the disease.

The Buzz: I don’t know, I’m not that excited about 50/50, but it’s gotta be better than Dream House, right? Naomi Watts and Rachel Weisz are both great actresses, generally known for choosing good films, but this Daniel Craig guy, really? He’s looking so haggard, like he’s strung out on heroin, and he just emanates this brooding whininess, and I sense zero acting talent within. How in the world did he become a leading man? I...

Director Frank Henenloter discusses his horror cult classic Basket Case which arrives on Blu-ray September 27

Back in the early 1980s, filmmaker Frank Henenlotter wanted to make a horror film which he believed no one would really see, or want to see. Nearly three decades later, that movie Basket Case is hitting the shelves for the first time on Blu-ray starting September 27. This disturbing movie centers on a man (Kevin Van Hentenryck) who carries around a strange wicker basket which contains his mangled and mutated brother Belial. The brothers roam the streets of New York City, seeking vengeance against the doctors who separated the Siamese twins. I recently had the chance to speak with Frank Henenlotter over the phone about Basket Case, and here's what he had to say.

Can you talk a bit about where this crazy concept sprung from?

Frank Henenlotter: I used to make my own little amateur movies,...

Title: Basket Case Directed by: Frank Henenlotter Starring: Kevin Van Hentenryck, Terri Susan Smith & Beverly Bonner Running time: 91 minutes, Unrated Frank Henenlotter’s 1982 cult classic has been released on Blu-ray, presented in the original 16mm camera ratio. The story of conjoined twins that travel to New York City seeking revenge on the doctors who surgically separated them years ago against their consent. I was about 5 years old when this movie came out, and I remember the posters looking somewhat ominous, but was never allowed to see or rent this film. I forgot completely about this movie until ShockYa gave me a copy. After watching it, I am...

by Colleen Wanglund, MoreHorror.com

Written and directed by Frank Henenlotter, a master of the low-budget B-horror movie, Basket Case (1982) tells the story of Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck—a Henenlotter regular) a naïve young man who carries around a basket containing his deformed brother Belial. Duane and Belial were conjoined twins whose birth caused the death of their mother. At around the age of twelve the twins were separated against their will at the urging of their father. Now Duane has brought Belial to New York City to find the doctors who performed the surgery and exact their revenge.

Belial is kept hidden because of his severe deformity. It was hoped by the boys’ father that Belial would die after the surgery, but he survived. The brothers have a telepathic connection and are extremely close. Things complicate matters for Duane when he meets Sharon (Terri Susan Smith) whom he likes…...