Low-budget films often go one of two ways: Either they are an arthouse darling that few but the most snooty of cinephiles will see, or they are a hokey mess that leans on cheap effects and gore to compensate for its lack of anything else. Basket Case, the 1982 movie by director Frank Henenlotter, is a film about two formerly-conjoined bothers, one “normal” and the other hideously deformed, out for revenge against the people who separated them in their adolescence. It’s a horror movie that straddles a fine line between high-concept and hokey to create a movie that at first glance is the latter, but includes enough of the former to make it much more than its budget and genre might suggest.
As always, spoilers ahead.
Basket Case moves at a nice pace from the start as it opens on a tension-building game of cat and mouse that soon ends in a grisly murder. As we pan from the mangled body, the focus lands on a blood-spattered stack of papers. It’s a nice, strong setup to the movie that pulls the viewer in right off the bat and deepens a mystery that is slowly revealed over the next hour.
We jump to New York City. Bright lights and seedy storefronts assault the eyes as Duane, our main character, arrives in the Big Apple for the first time with nothing but a backpack, a wad of cash, and a large, padlocked, wicker basket. You can practically smell the street as Duane walks past many denizens of the night to find a place to stay. I’m loathe to say that NYC is like a character in the movie, because I’m not a fan of that idea, but Henenlotter uses the grime and filth of the city perfectly to mirror the moral compass of our main characters. The seediness of the streets mirrors their “tainted souls” as they’re out for revenge.
Duane and the infamous wicker basket containing his brother, Belial.
Duane quickly finds a hotel to stay at, and as he enters the foyer, we meet a number of the colorful supporting cast of characters that’ll flit in and out of Duane and his brother’s journey. I really enjoyed how the characters are so well written that it masks the lack of ability of the actors. The hotel manager (who is oddly overweight for the amount of stair cardio he gets in this film), the drunk, the gossipy lady across the hall, and the sex worker next door all are unique and feel like real people. They’re all going about their daily lives in this seedy hotel, just trying to survive in the big city. But their world is about to be rocked by this fresh-faced kid and his mysterious wicker basket moving in.
Here we meet one of the three women in this film that are good to Duane. Casey, the previously mentioned sex worker next door, catches the drunk from earlier peeping in Duane’s keyhole, intrigued by the wad of cash he saw Duane with. Casey then warns Duane about keeping his valuables safe. She’s clearly a good person, or at least not a selfish one, and is one of the few rays of light in Duane’s life in New York City.
When Duane and Belial go to meet the next name on their hit list, we meet the second ray of light in Duane’s life, Sharon. She’s a happy-go-lucky receptionist for their next victim. Duane hits it off with her and she asks him out, which he has to quietly accept so Belial doesn’t hear. This is our first hint that Duane and his brother’s relationship is not quite copesetic. That night the twins return to the doctor’s office and, after purposefully waiting for Sharon to leave, Duane sets Belial loose on the Doctor. This is where we get our first look at Belial, who is not much more than a beachball-sized lump of flesh with a face and arms. The puppet is creepy and definitely intriguing, which to me makes for a good monster. He’s certainly unique and is made even more so by his history and personality.
Our first look at Belial, who is about to take his revenge.
In the scenes that follow we find out that Belial is very dependent on Duane and is threatened by anyone who might separate them. We also learn that Belial has the same physical urges as a regular human and wants what he can’t have: love and a physical connection with another. When Duane and Sharon start getting chummy and kiss, Belial senses Duane’s happiness and erupts into a fit of rage, drawing Duane back to him by psychically screaming at him. This frustrates Duane, who drowns his sorrows in booze and friendship as he drinks with the only other person to be nice to him, Casey, and tells her, and the viewer, his backstory.
What I find interesting about Duane and Belial’s backstory is the more you think about it, the more heart wrenching it really is. Their mother died giving birth to them and their father hated them for it. Their aunt was the only one who really loved them. They were locked away and shunned. All they had was each other. Then, when their father hires three unscrupulous doctors to forcibly remove Belial with a complete disregard for his life, you feel the pain as the boys are held down on the kitchen table and drugged. Their entire world is being literally ripped apart. Duane is all alone, but Belial lives and calls to Duane. Despite his fresh wound he forces his way outside to rescue Belial in hopes of being whole again. But that’s not to be and they proceed to kill their father (with an overly complicated giant saw contraption they built). Despite the murder, their aunt still very much loves them both for who they are. She nurtures them until her death, which is probably the saddest part of the film, as their time of happiness has ended and now they’re cast off into the uncaring world to fend for themselves.
Their aunt loved both of the boys, but in the case of Sharon and Casey this compassion doesn’t extend to Belial, as they don’t yet know he exists. Belial wants to experience the happiness Duane has and feels he can take it in his own way. He ends up first driving Casey away after sneaking into her apartment and fondling her, scaring her off into the apartment of the gossipy neighbor before stealing a pair of her underwear. He then sneaks out and finds Sharon, who Duane had recently driven off in an attempt to save her from Belial’s deepening angst towards his growing independence.
The ill-fated Sharon.
When Belial decides he wants Sharon, too, we see a surreal dream sequence wherein Duane dreams he is running nude through the streets to Sharon’s place. I find this sequence very interesting because I see it as not just a bit of psychic dribble from Belial, but rather it’s Belial accidentally projecting how he imagines himself. He imagines he’s “normal” like Duane, and will be able to have Sharon the same way Duane would. This is obviously not the case for Belial, as he ends up waking Sharon and strangling her to death to stop her screaming. Duane realizes what the dream meant and goes to find Sharon, dead, and Belial having his way with her corpse. It’s the last straw for Duane and the breaking point for his and Belial’s relationship. Duane clearly can’t have a normal life, or even happiness, because of Belial, whom he now finally sees as a monster. They fight and tumble out a window, hanging for dear life from a neon sign before falling to the street below and their apparent demise.
At its core, Basket Case is about toxic relationships and how, if we allow them to go unchecked, they can hurt not only us but the people we care about. Duane is going on this revenge trip at Belial’s request. He loves Belial and knows what they’re doing is wrong, but he wants closure and thinks once they get it, life can be normal. Well, Belial isn’t normal, and he will make sure Duane’s life is never “normal” for his own selfish reasons. I’m sure we’ve all had people like that in our lives. However, we must know when to cut the cord and let go. Duane couldn’t do that, despite his best efforts, and in the end it left a trail of bodies and his own life in tatters.
Duane realizing he's in a very bad relationship.
Basket Case is a good movie. It’s low-budget, sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s “lesser” than higher budget films, because it uses its budget wisely and balances its inefficiencies with good writing. Not many “B-movies” bring this much pathos to the screen and make you actually like and care for the characters. The story is not only intriguing, but well-paced with the requisite bits of explanation and foreshadowing sprinkled in along the way to make it all make sense in the end. I’ve seen it a few times now and pick up on new bits every time I watch it. Yes, I know there are sequels that expand upon the characters, but taken on its own, Basket Case is a movie that has a lot to chew on well after the credits roll. I’d dare say it’s even required watching for horror fans so you have a benchmark for what low-budget films of the genre can be.