Although at the end of 1982's BASKET CASE the film's stars were left for dead, in BASKET CASE 2 it turns out they were merely injured, and are now ready to start causing trouble all over again. Those who saw the first BASKET CASE will recall Duane and Belial Bradley, who were born Siamese
twins. Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) is perfectly normal-looking, while Belial (created by special effects) is a small, grotesque mutant--just a slimy head with two slimy arms. A bloody operation in the first movie painfully separated the boys, but Belial did not die as expected, and Duane
subsequently carried his brother around in a laundry basket every place he went. Hence the movie's title.
When the brothers "died" in the first film, they were making their escape after having murdered the doctors who separated them. As BASKET CASE 2 begins, we see that the brothers were merely injured by their fall out of a Times Square window. In a guarded hospital room, the two engineer their
escape by killing the police officer outside--that is, Belial does the killing, sticking himself to a wall and ripping off his victim's face. Duane just watches and directs. Waiting outside the hospital, very conveniently, are Granny Ruth (jazz singer Annie Ross, of Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross)
and her beautiful granddaughter, Susan (Heather Rattray). Granny, a physician, has devoted her life to caring for and protecting freaks. Her Staten Island mansion is a veritable haven for a weirdly fascinating collection of unfortunate individuals born with most unusual defects, the majority with
animal- or monster-like oversized heads, many with no bodies, some with giant gills. One resembles a huge hippopotamus; another, a terribly shy female who in a perverse final scene becomes Belial's "mate," remains constantly covered by a blanket. While Duane recovers from his injuries and Belial
adapts to life among his own kind, the police hunt for the killer brothers. Much hotter on the trail, however, is a nosy, ambitious reporter, Marcie Elliott (Kathryn Meisle). She actually manages to discover the Bradley boys' whereabouts, but poor Marcie's luck ends at Granny's Staten Island
sanctuary, where the freaks make sure the newswoman's biggest scoop is her last. Unfortunately, she is not the only one to leave this world at the mercy of mutants. Her photographer and editor are sacrificed as well, in some of the movie's gorier scenes.
For fans of the macabre and weird, BASKET CASE 2 may be an enjoyable experience. It is not without humor (although this humor is black and somewhat depraved), and there are moments of gruesomeness that will entertain die-hard horror fans (although this is not an excessively bloody film). The
makeup and special effects, cleverly executed by Gabe Bartalos, are superb and memorable. Unfortunately, director Frank Henenlotter (who also directed the original BASKETCASE and BRAIN DAMAGE, 1988) did not elicit equally memorable acting from his stars. Granted, the film is weakly plotted to
favor visual effects over story and characters, but the actors in "normal" roles could show much more personality and spark; as it is they are bland in comparison to the colorful mutants. Considering these failures, it seems unlikely that the BASKET CASE series will progress much further than
this. (Violence, adult situations.) leave a comment