31 Flavors of Horror #8: Basket Case (Also, One A Week Review #40)

It's time for a new scoop of the 31 Flavors of Horror, and it's also Saturday, meaning it's my One A Week Review. What better way to celebrate both of these occasion than with the 42 St. Grindhouse superstar, Belial the deformed, murderous Siamese Twin in his debut, Basket Case, which was just released on Blu-Ray. I was lucky enough to get to review this for DVD Snapshot, but this is a fun, sleazy, playful flick I revisit every few years.

C'mon, you know you want to! 

Bonus: if you ever wondered what happened to the beautiful leading lady Terri Susan Smith, she now works as an artist who creates amazing, one-of-a-kind stone bowls.

31 Flavors of Horror #8:
Basket Case

Official Synopsis:

Carrying a mysterious wicker basket wherever he goes, Duane Bradley checks into a flea-bag hotel in New York's Times Square. What's in the basket, you ask? Why, it's Duane's hideously misshapen Siamese twin brother, Belial! Together, they're in town to hunt down and wreak havoc on the sleazy surgeons who separated them...

With memorably gruesome scenes – such as the screaming woman with the scalpels stuck in her face – and some disturbing stop-motion animation, Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case is one of the most beloved, cheerfully demented cult classicks of all time. And now, for the very first time, Basket Case has been remastered in high Definition, making Belial look even ghastlier than ever before!

So go ahead and open the basket... if you dare!

Our Take:

Calling this a “Cult Classick,” as they do in the official synopsis, isn't really a typo. Basket Case revels in it's cheap “grindhouse”aesthetic. Everything on-screen is dilapidation and peeling paint. If nothing else, the footage of seedy circa-1980 Times Square would make this a must watch.

This horror-comedy hybrid is about two forcibly separated but psychically linked Siamese twins. Duane is (Kevin Van Hentenryck) normal looking and naïve, but Belial is a deformed, tiny monstrosity with disturbing eyes and outsized claws. They gleefully go about “The Big Apple” tracking down the doctors that split them up to get revenge. As Duane would like to be free to pursue a girl and Belial requires constant attention and a wicker basket, there's a running theme about striking out from one's family and claiming independence. (Just because that family member is a murderous, lumpen head with arms cleaved from the torso doesn't mean a general audience can't relate to them.)

31 Flavors of Horror #1: Hershell Gordon Lewis, The Godfather of Gore (One A Week Reviews #39)

I'm excited to start my 31 FLAVORS OF HORROR series of reviews to celebrate the favorite month of every horror movie fan and blogger, October. I'll be continuing my One A Week Reviews with each Saturday's post, but you can expect a different, tasty fright flick review every day of the month!


I'd like to also say a big "Thank You" to all the marvelous reviewers, bloggers, and podcasters who both inspire and encourage me. Many of you I get to see twice a year at HorrorHound Weekends, and I look forward to the next one!

So let's get started... and what better place to start than with a look at the very beginning of gore? It was a pleasure, and serendipitous timing, to receive a copy of this to review for  dvdsnapshot.com! This is a must-see, highly recommended documentary for any fan of genre cinema!



31 Flavors of Horror #1:

HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS: THE GODFATHER OF GORE

Official Synopsis:

Take an outrageous ride through the wild world of exploitation films with this often-hilarious documentary, Herschell Gordon Lewis, The Godfather of Gore!

Featuring interviews with cast, crew, and critics such as director John Waters, drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs, and Herschell Gordon Lewis himself, The Godfather of Gore traces Lewis' start in the innocent bare-naked world of “Nudie Cuties” before he shocked the world with Blood Feast, the first-ever gore film! Lewis then continued to assault audiences with such audacious shockers as She-Devils on Wheels, Blast-Off Girls, Just for the Hell of It, Two Thousand Maniacs!, The Gruesome Twosome, The Gore Gore Girls, and the incredible Wizard of Gore!

Experience a decade of motion-picture madness – with tons of clips, rare outtakes, and testimony from the people who were there – as Herschell Gordon Lewis, The Godfather of Gore leaves you laughing and screaming at some of the most amazing movies to ever play American movie theaters!

Our Take:

Blood Feast is a terribly made movie. It's nonsensical, the actors aren't great, the effects are awful, and it's technically inept. However, it was the first gore film, and the stories behind it and it's makers are pretty fascinating. It's the anchor around which Hershell Gordon Lewis, The Godfather of Gore is built. Something Weird video's love letter of a documentary to H.G. Lewis, perhaps the king of B-movie cynicism and creativity – not to mention the father of direct response marketing. He created the gore film, and was one of the kings of biker films and “Nudie Cuties.” These nudist films seem especially like curios, as they mostly consist of nude people walking away from the camera. As a bad photographer who always misses the moment, I can relate.

One A Week Reviews #5: Bad Biology

I had a conversation tonight where my neighbor told me he selected a movie to watch on Netflix because I'd given it a rating of four stars out of five. He kinda wanted to know why I'd liked it... I had to explain that Andy Warhol's Flesh was more a historical curio with nudity than a quality flick. I let him know that in the future if he wonders why I like something he should probably ask.

I don't think I'll recommend this one to him.

So, um, Frank Henenlotter made a movie about a woman with a monstrous, voracious vagina who meets a man with a rampaging, detachable penis. That's right, the maker of the Basket Case, Frankenhooker, and Brain Damage made a mashup of Teeth, Pervert, and One-Eyed Monster.

I think that really says it all. I'd missed Bad Biology when it was screened at the Horror Hound Weekend in November and regretted it. Tonight I finally got my hands on it. Near-guerrilla production values, an obviously low budget, wooden acting, and a general sense of good, sleazy fun permeates the proceedings. The "fun" is as lighthearted as you can make it when your lead character keeps killing her lovers when she gets carried away then goes and gives births to super-accelerated monster babies... but then again, her opening lines are where she discusses being born with at least seven clitorises.

Thankfully, good taste isn't the point of this exercise. Gross-out humor is, and it's here in abundance. The penis that "talks" back and has to be duct-taped down inside boxer shorts is a prize example. Batz consumes porn and drugs in a never-ending quest to keep his monster from running away and doing women to death. The ever-aroused Jennifer breaking into Batz's house to wallow around among his things is both subtle and over-the-top. The hooker who has the never-ending orgasm? So over-the-top it's under again.

Henenlotter's style is still made up of weirdly flat photography and practical special effects that are more about conveying their vulgar inspiration than pleasing the eye. It actually helps sell his films. All three Basket Case films have the same "charm." It's hard to sell a show that's a "vagina's eye view" otherwise. He's the King of Grindhouse cinema and still retains the crown. If the film stock was grainier and the costumes dated, almost all of this film could have been made in the early 80's. Well,, there wouldn't have been rappers posing with the Vagina-Masked models, but beyond that, this film is obviously from the father of Frankenhooker. This is pure party-cinema in the sleaze tradition with lots of naked girls and filthily gross-out humor.

So these two star-crossed lovers kill some people, meet B-Movie Scream Queen Tina Krause, and eventually come to a completely logical conclusion. If you like trash cinema, or have arguments with your own genitals, you're bound to enjoy the film in the spirit of "fun" it's intended. If you don't, you can happily pass.