The following review will most certainly contain SPOILERS !!!

Now here's a guy who deserves a decent comeback...Director Frank Hennenlotter ! It's very remarkable what this guy pulled of with almost no budget. He's the living proof that you only need a dose of healthy creativity and a good basic idea to make an important movie. And Basket Case is an important one. It grew out to become one of the most controversial cult movies and it's still fun to watch. The acting is terrible. Even the main character ( I don't know him but his name sounds like he has Dutch roots ) is a very bad actor but they're all trying very hard. The creature effects are amazingly cheap and cheesy but at the same time entertaining and they make you wish Hennenlotter had more money. He spent most of his budget to fake blood so therefore the killing scenes are nasty, gore and even a bit disgusting. Just how a true cult-horror fan likes them, in other words.

But like I said before, it is the story that fascinates you the most. About a boy who takes a basket case with him everywhere he goes. It contains his horrible deformed twin brother. They were Siamese Twins but "it" ( which is called Belial ) only exists of a head, claws and some other flesh. They were separated when they were young and Belial now wants to avenge that. All persons who were involved in the operation have to die. At the same time, Belial is very jealous whenever his brother makes contact with girls and he develops his own "sexual feelings"

Director Frank Hennenlotter made two sequels to this one ( which I haven't seen unfortunately ) and two other very good titles. Brain Damage and Frankenhooker. Basket Case is without a doubt the best one and at the same time an important film for the genre. The idea of a Siamese Twin is just brilliant in my opinion. I would love to see what this director is capable of when he can use a bigger budget. The creativity he used here sure was promising but he seemed to have stopped filmmaking since the early 90's. Highly recommended if you ain't easily disgusted. A must see for fans of cult and milestones as well !

I went into this movie knowing very well that it was going to be stupid, but after seeing it, I now know that it's stupid in an entertaining way. The movie is kind of like watching a train crash in slow motion, where it's so terrible and macabre but at the same time you can't look away. It would make more sense why I think it's ridiculous if I talk about the plot. The movie is about a person named Duane who arrives in NYC. He's from upstate, and has never seen the city before. He carries around a locked basket with him most of the time, and the gimmick of the movie is that everybody wants to know what's inside it. This doesn't get revealed until much later, so the movie does build suspense pretty well. Duane also meets a receptionist at the doctor who he takes a liking to, and stays in a rundown hotel in the city to give himself a place to stay. Surprisingly, the hotel manager is probably one of the best characters, even though the movie doesn't give him a name. He has a stereotypical italian new york accent, and is impatient when his tenants are out of their rooms past a certain time. It's an overall decent movie, until about 50 minutes in when you see the monster. As it turns out, the basket contains Duane's hideously malformed brother Belial who doesn't even resemble a human being. Later in the movie when Belial climbs out of the basket when Duane is out with the receptionist, it makes a big scene in the hotel and screams, which obviously draws everybody's attention. It kills one of the characters, but even after investigators arrive, nobody is able to tell who did it. Duane is questioned, but eventually let go. It turns out Belial is murderous because as a child, Duane was forcefully separated from him by some surgeons, and now he's trying to get revenge on them. Duane himself doesn't hate the doctors, and he tries to convince his brother to calm down. Towards the end of the movie, Belial kills the receptionist that Duane was dating, which enrages him so much he tries to kill him, but the both of them are knocked out of the hotel window instead. The movie is obviously absurd and pretty bad, but at least it's funny. It manages to combine comedy and horror reasonably well. Also, when Duane's brother is out of his basket and moving around, it's all stop motion, which looks cool. Still, how this movie managed to get two sequels is beyond my understanding.

Basket Case was a horro movie that was intentionally funny. And because of how cheesy it is, it's even sillier now. The plot is quite simple and the acting is mediocre, but remember, it's a B movie. But the kills are funny and have just the right amount of gore. The ending was both weird and predictable. Not the best movie and not required viewing for horror fans, but a fun 90 minutes.