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Basket Case 2
USA 1990
produced by Edgar Ievins, James Glickenhaus (executive) for Ievins-Henenlotter, Shapiro-Glickenhaus
directed by Frank Henenlotter
starring Kevin Van Hentenryck, Annie Ross, Heather Rattray, Kathryn Meisle, Matt Mitler, Ted Sorel, Jason Evers, Judy Grafe, Chad Brown, Beverly Bonner, Leonard Jackson, Alexandra Auder, Brian Fitzpatrick, Gale Van Cott, Kuno Sponholz, Dominic Marcus, Doug Anderson, Jan Saint, Michael Rubenstein, George Andros Aries, Deborah Bauman, Marianne Carlson, David Emge, Jim Farley, Ron Fazio, Joseph Leavengood, Tom Franco, Jeri LeShay, Matt Malloy, Jeffrey Danneman, Jody Oliver, Nick Roberts Michael Rogen, Sturgis Warner
written by Frank Henenlotter, music by Joe Renzetti, special makeup effects by Gabriel Bartalos, special effects by Robert Gann
Basket Case
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Turns out Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) and his deformed severed siamese
twin Belial haven't died in the finale of Basket
Case after all, and now they are in a hospital under police
supervision and under siege by the press. Nevertheless, Duane and Belial
manage to escape the hospital to unexpectedly find an escape car waiting
for them, an escape car that brings them to Granny Ruth's (Annie Ross)
Staten Island home of freaks, a super-secret society of deformed human
beings who have long been cast out by normal people but found
refuge with granny. Belial enjoys their new home, even finds a
girlfriend, but now Duane feels like the outcast, because on the outside,
he looks 100% normal, and all he ever wanted was to lead a normal life.
Only Granny's granddaughter Susan (Heather Rattray) gives him hope and
consolation, because she looks very normal - and quite pretty - as well,
and she seems to feel as drawn to him as he to her. However, everytime he
suggests to go away and start somewhere else anew, she turns him down,
claiming she blongs to this community of freaks, is one of them - which
Duane fails to understand ... The disappearance of Duane and Belial from
the hospital was headline news, so Marcie (Kathryn Meisle), ambitious girl
reporter, has taken it upon herself to track the two of them down - and
successfully so. However, when she loses a photographer (Matt Mitler) in
the house of freaks, it should have been a warning, but she pushes on and
sends a private eye (Ted Sorel) to meet Duane - a private eye who ends up
slaughtered by the freaks, whose only concern is that the article Marcie
plans to write could destroy their sanctuary. Finally, the freaks go after
Marcie, too ... At their victory celebration, Duane wants to make love
to Susan - but instead discovers her little secret, that she carries a
monster baby in her belly which every now and again sticks its head out.
He is so shocked that he throws her out a window to her death, then he
realizes what he has done to her just because she was a freak like he once
has been, and he picks up Belial and sews him back onto himself ...
Now
I'm not sure if Basket Case
ever needed a sequel, but this movie was hardly it: While the first film
was a self-ironic hommage to grindhouse cinema as well as New York's seedy
underbelly (in particular Times Square, 42nd Street), Basket Case 2
takes the story to Staten Island in more ways than one - everything is
much slicker this time around, not only the sets and settings, but also
the story that only pretends to put a heart into the proceedings, instead
though has the emotional depth of your average made-for-TV drama, and
likewise the plotline of the film hardly exceeds the usual genre fodder of
its time. Having said that, Basket Case 2 is not a trainwreck by
a longshot, writer/director Frank Henenlotter has still infused the thing
with enough twisted humour to make it totally watchable, it's just not the
sequel the original Basket Case
would have deserved, because while with the first movie you have the
feeling it needed to be made, this one is hardly above conveyor belt
horror (which in itself is not essentially a bad thing).
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