Basket Case—Exploitation Masterpiece
By Simon Mcgillivray
Basket Case (1982), the story of a young man who carries his formerly-conjoined, horrifically deformed, murderous twin brother Belial in a basket, is a masterpiece of exploitation filmmaking. Shot on 16mm with a budget of about thirty-five thousand dollars, director Frank Henelotter stretched this ludicrous concept to the absolute limit, coaxing compelling, albeit incredibly campy, performances out of his amateurish actors, and bringing his titular monster to life with a combination of puppetry, stop motion and truly inspired sound design. Basket Case is an astounding peek into the visionary mind of a true “basket case'' filmmaker.
The film follows Duane and Belial Bradley as the pair track down and murder the doctors responsible for separating them without their consent as children. The brothers have a psychic connection that allows the otherwise mute Belial to communicate with Duane; but it also begins to put them at odds with one another as Duane develops a romantic relationship with a woman he meets, causing Belial to erupt with feelings of jealousy and betrayal. Belial is a character motivated primarily by the intense rage brought on by a life of being treated like a monster simply for existing.
As we learn in a flashback sequence late in the film, Duane and Belial’s aunt died and the boys were left to their own devices, Belial’s only objective became revenge. Duane and Belial aren’t so morally opposed as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and there isn’t a clear victim between them as in the case of Dr. Frankenstein and his Monster. They have a wholly unique and complex dynamic that is as fascinating and tragic as it is absurd. Duane is presented sympathetically due to his naivety; and his likeability is compounded by the pitch perfect camp of Kevin Van Hentenryck’s performance. At the same time, he is, in essence, an accessory to murder at the very least. Even when he’s enacting murderous vengeance, Duane lets Belial do all the dirty work, while he only sets the stage for his little brother to make a big entrance. Duane awkwardly leads the doctors to the realization of who he is before siccing Belial on them with glee. This murder dynamic brings out the best in the pair. Belial is able to release some of his deadly rage in a relatively justified setting, while Duane seems exceptionally proud of his brother.
The decision by Henenlotter to make the doctors all very obviously scummy characters, while Duane is hilarious and charming as he kills them, effectively removes the possibility that an audience sees Duane as a villainous figure from the start. Presenting Duane as the over the top, naive goof that Van Hentenryck plays him as saves the film from the pitfall that its thematic core become the well-trodden question of the morality of murder. Instead, Henenlotter allows the focus to be on what everyone watching the film wants to see, the ‘monster’ in the basket.
Of course, Belial is guaranteed to be perceived as monstrous from jump, so a very compelling conflict arises when Duane gets a taste of ‘normal’ life, when he meets Sharon and falls in love. As Duane spends time with Sharon, Belial experiences his brother’s feelings and thoughts vicariously, which enrages him to no end. Belial needs Duane, and Duane can’t abandon Belial, not just because of the deep connection they have through shared life experiences and shared trauma, but because of the very real psychic connection that will always link the twins together. Due to the nature of their connection, we as an audience recognize that Duane can never be without Belial, foreshadowing an inevitably tragic outcome.
As the curiosity at the center of Henenlotter’s vision, Belial needs to carry a great deal of weight in order for Basket Case to function in any unironic capacity. Luckily, Belial is incredible. Before we even see him in the flesh, his presence in the basket is both unnerving and exciting. That being said, Henenlotter understands that he needs to properly display his freak in order for his audience to become completely entranced, and Belial’s physical form does not disappoint once he is revealed. Belial resembles a pile of mashed potatoes with big meaty, gnarled hands and a hauntingly human face, rendered horrific by dead, glassy eyes and a gaping maw of crooked prickle teeth. The primary Belial puppet is a lightning-in-a-bottle creation. Of course, being Duane’s twin brother, Belial’s face is intended to look like Duane’s, but the shoestring budget creates something that, when brought to life on screen, is truly shocking and unnerving to watch. As the eventual Basket Case sequels proved, a higher-budget, more ‘realistic’- looking Belial is not nearly as effective as the obviously fake, dead-eyed original.
Aside from the main puppet, Henenlotter also employs stop motion animation for some of Belial’s rampaging. While Henenlotter would be the first to admit that his stop motion work is shoddy at best, I think it has an off-putting, inconsistent quality that perfectly complements the tone of the film as a whole. The third strategy used for Belial’s on-screen appearance was for hilarious insert shots, in which Frank Henenlotter himself wore a glove resembling Belial’s hand to interact with objects. There’s really no discounting the amount of dedication Henenlotter had for his lumpy little creation.
While Belial’s physical form is an impressive accomplishment on its own, the lightning that shocks Henenlotter’s monster to life is his voice. Throughout the film, Belial experiences fits of rage during which he bursts forth from his basket shrieking. The howls that Belial emits from his cavernous mouth are truly unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Belial’s vocalization is loud and abrasive, and, admittedly fitting with the way his mouth hangs wide open, has a way of consistently hitting the same note and holding it for long stretches of time. The sound is so overwhelming and attention-commanding, it serves as a motif throughout the film, assuring that your focus is back on the screen any time Belial hollers.
Basket Case seems like a spectacularly ‘bad’ movie. But to label it as such is to ignore its originality, charmingly surreal tone, beautiful grindhouse production value, dense web of subtext, and Frank Henenlotter’s unwavering dedication to his project. Basket Case is provocative ‘bad’ cinema, created from a rare combination of scarce resources and unlimited passion. That passion continues to inspire influential horror masters of the modern era, such as Saw and The Conjuring director James Wan, whose most recent horror film Malignant shared distinct aesthetic tissue with Henenlotter’s 1982 film.
In other words, Basket Case is great cinema.