Warning: Mild spoilers ahead for those who have a taste for seedy, sleazy exploitation of the not particularly merit worthy variety.
Basket Case stars Kevin Van Hentenryck as the Marc Bolan-haired Duane Bradley, a fresh faced kid just off the bus in Manhattan's infamously seedy 42nd Street neighborhood. He carries around a giant wicker basket, and the movie's first half hour consists of an ever expanding cast asking, “What's in the basket?” What’s in the basket is Duane’s hideously deformed, teleketic, super-strong Siamese twin, Bilial, who used to just grow out of Duane’s torso, but was medically separated by a bunch of asshole doctors and veterinarians despite Duane’s screaming protests. The doctors throw Bilial out with the trash, but Duane rescues him. The pair travel to the Big Apple to hunt down and kill everyone responsible for their separation. Did you catch all that? Oh yeah, and one more thing: Basket Case is icky, icky in its soul. And not in the fun way.
A few months ago I wrote about a movie called The Deadly Spawn. Though Deadly Spawn is by no means a great movie, I find that it nevertheless contains that fleeting spark of movie magic, that special something that fills the viewer with cinema joy despite its shortcomings. Everyone involved - from writer/director Douglas McKeown to the cast to the effects people - seems to be having the time of their lives making this silly little movie about an evil outer-space slug invasion, and that passion and excitement is contagious.
What I didn't realize when I wrote that review is the extent to which these low-budget 80s horror movies are a window into their makers' souls. These guys poured their entire beings into these movies, so beyond exposing their incredible passion, work ethic, and resourcefulness, these movies expose a lot of strange things about the moviemakers themselves. This is where Basket Case goes horribly, horribly wrong. It has all the passion, all the campy bad acting, all the quaint but loving creature effects. But there is no sense of joy and fun. Just heaps of sleaze. If Basket Case is any indication, writer/director Frank Henenlotter is a strange, not-entirely-right person.
The women in the cast – Beverly Bonner as a woman in Duane's hotel and Terri Susan Smith as Duane's new girlfriend Sharon – are exploited for their looks. There’s nothing eyebrow-raising about that, except that these actresses are not what you might call attractive. I understand that there are all different types of people in the world, and specifically since this movie takes place in seedy pre-Giuliani New York, some strange mugs are to be expected. What I have a problem with is not that they're not 'lookers,' but that these girls were obviously conned into taking their shirts off on the promise that they looked ‘model pretty.’ The leering camera will make you feel really dirty and embarrassed, as if you are expected to be in on the joke at the expense of these poor ladies.
Most – okay maybe not most but a lot of exploitation cinema is pretty tongue-in-cheek. Everyone’s in it for a good time. Even in something like Cannibal Holocaust, the only part that seems really exploitative is the turtle mutilation. As gruesome as the rest is, the cast seems in on the joke. More than any other movie I’ve seen, Basket Case seems truly exploitative. I don’t know who is in on the joke. I don’t even know if there is a joke. I haven’t watched Human Centipede, but people I’ve talked to say that even that movie plays out in a “can you believe we went there?” kind of way. In Basket Case, when the deformed, globular half-person Bilial explicitly rapes and kills Sharon, I got the distinct impression that Helenlotter intended for the audience to be titillated. Basket Case is not as explicitly disgusting as the most violent, extreme horror movies, but the intention seems so much darker.
The more I read about Helenlotter, the more I think he would be happy about my adverse reaction to his awful little movie. That's fine. I'm not out to censor him or anything. However, I have a lot of passion for grindhouse and exploitation cinema, too. I may have missed the whole point of exploitation, but to me, pushing what people can stomach to the extreme is best when accompanied by some point or skillful method. Basket Case has neither. As bad as what you see onscreen is, it's the movie's dank soul that makes this a truly sordid affair.
Magic Moment: I will hand it to Basket Case on one account. Helenlotten does a bang-up job documenting that long lost era when 42nd Street was synonymous with peep shows, hookers, street trash, and grindhouse theaters. Not many movies that played on 42nd Street actually took place on 42nd Street.
-Ben