Colbridge

If you enjoyed the change in tone for Basket Case 2 compared to the original you'll certainly like the second sequel as we have more of the same cartoonish freak show fun here with Henenlotter once again ramping up the humour and reducing the gore, apparently at the producers request. Basket Case 2 and 3 even look like they were filmed back to back although they weren't.

Annie Ross returns as Granny Ruth and pretty much holds proceedings together as we find her getting Duane released from a padded cell having once again had his conjoined brother Belial removed from his side after the gory finale of the previous entry. We don't see Belial until 35 mins in but what we do learn early on is that he is going to be a Father and Duane will be an Uncle as Eve the torso gives birth to several baby Belial's which is the result of the torrid sex scene witnessed in Basket Case 2.

The final showdown sees Belial face off with the Police who have killed Eve and locked up their offspring. His act of revenge provides some inventive gory moments and a closing message delivered by Ross that freaks of all kinds should be able to come out of the shadows and be accepted by society.

It's a fitting end to a strange uneven trilogy of films that began earnestly with some shock value in the seedy original but sadly degenerated into cartoon silliness with the last two entries. Kevin Van Hentenryck turns in another aloof performance as Duane but Jim O'Doherty as Little Jim steals the show, especially during the birth scene. The community of freaks however are less convincing with actors parading around in rubbery suits and an assortment of freakish heads. Henenlotter makes no effort to inject them with any personality, in fact hardly any of them utter a single word.

In most cases a low budget usually hampers a film but in this case it's the bigger budget that hindered the sequels. This feels more like a Charles Band effort with his trademark weird puppetry. If Henenlotter had to make do and mend and grind out a couple of sequels on a minuscule budget the same way as he did the first time around fans may have got the sequels they were expecting.

The sequel to the cult favourite Basket Case (1982) comes 8 years after the original with a bigger budget and more competent makeup effects but it all feels too clean and safe as it dispenses with the grindhouse squalor which gave the first film it's edge. Henenlotter probably welcomed the chance to improve on his original and who can blame him, at least this time he remembered to film it in widescreen, but the idea just morphs into a surreal freak show by dispensing with the real life grime of New York and relocating Duane and his deformed brother Belial to Granny Ruth's mansion who is housing a community of freaks to give them somewhere to live away from the media as the sequel picks up from where the original ended.

Annie Ross is perfect as Granny Ruth and the array of freaks she looks after as her extended family are more amusing and harmless than threatening or scary, and at times it looked like the Cantina scene in Star Wars. Henenlotter has definitely gone for a lighter tone here and revels in the freak show he has created, a nod to Tod Browning's controversial Freaks (1932) and Michael Winner's The Sentinel (1977).

Kevin Van Hentenryck returns as Duane, who doesn't seem quite as mentally disturbed as he did in the original with an uneven performance, tries to distance himself from brother Belial and find love with Ruth's granddaughter Susan, however there is trouble on the horizon when a reporter threatens to expose the lair. Granny Ruth and her army of freaks take action to keep their community private giving Belial the opportunity to cause more bloodshed and mayhem.

There are some strange and gruesome moments, especially in the finale, and a sex scene between Belial and Eve a bodyless torso that has to be seen to be believed, but the emphasis is more on humour which makes this a very different experience from the original. Even Belial has been upgraded in the puppetry department and doesn't look quite the same as he did. Basket Case 2 is almost a spoof of itself but to it's own detriment.

I first encountered Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case as a fuzzy trailer that used to pop up on well worn rental videotapes in the early 1980's, especially if you rented the likes of Evil Dead, Brain Damage or Eraserhead from Palace Pictures to name a few, before the video nasty brigade stopped all the fun with the Video Recordings Act of 1984 here in the UK. The rather strange trailer about a young man carrying his deformed brother around New York City in a basket looked disturbing, distasteful and exploitative and after seeing it in it's entirety it is this and much more and a horror movie I've been a fan of ever since.

Having watched it again recently the gore, humour and original premise still holds up even though the subject matter probably won't land well with today's more sensitive audience around exploiting deformity and conjoined twins, but produced in an era awash with Halloween style slasher rip-offs Basket Case was something original and fascinatingly squalid.

Made on a shoestring budget and shot on 16mm film Henenlotter admitted in the introduction to the blu ray release that he forgot to film it in widescreen not knowing what he was really doing. The 1.37:1 academy ratio we are left with served it's purpose back in the video rental days when everyone had square TV screens but it's slightly hampered on larger widescreen TV's of today.

Set at a time when New York was a city in decay, which this film captures like many others around this period, we meet Duane who, having been separated against his will from his deformed brother Belial, who he now keeps in a basket, seeks refuge in a sleazy back street hotel which seems to inhabit an array of unhinged characters that only adds to the strange scenario. I really like Robert Vogel's hotel manager character who inhabits the New York sleaze around him.

Belial always seems jealous of Duane, especially when he tries to have a romantic relationship, and when Duane isn't feeding him by tossing food into his basket he gets impatient, violent and wreaks havoc on anyone he comes into contact with, much like a caged animal. This gives Henenlotter the license to unleash some wonderfully gory visuals courtesy of John Caglione Jr who had worked on Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) and has since gone on to a high profile career in Hollywood. The puppetry and prosthetics of Belial make him seem inhuman, especially the way he sounds making disturbing monotone noises when he wants something. However the only thing that really let's it down are below par stop motion effects that seem out of place and are poorly executed but because you're so drawn into the weirdness of the character you forgive this and go along with his evil antics and the horrors that unfold.

Basket Case is a fun and compelling watch and a cult favourite among horror fans. It proved so successful for Henenlotter that he went on to make 2 sequels Basket Case 2 (1990) and Basket Case 3 (1991) as well as other cult hits Brain Damage (1988) and Frankenhooker (1990).