Grading On A Curve: Siamese Twins Take Their Revenge In The Perfectly Low Budget ‘Basket Case’

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Basket Case

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Terrible acting, incoherent dialogue, scattered plotlines, and horrible special effects typically lead films to be seen as “bad movies” in the eyes of most viewers. But many “bad movies” are actually incredibly entertaining and are more fun to watch than most “good movies,” which is why so many allegedly awful movies have developed devoted cult followings. With that in mind, we bring you Grading On A Curve, an ongoing column devoted to enjoyable “bad movies” that are streaming online.

The Film: Basket Case
Year: 1982
Streaming on: Amazon Prime, Shudder, Amazon Video, iTunes, YouTube

Basket Case is a goofy and gory horror film about separated Siamese twins murdering their former doctors. The film perfects low-budget sleaze through its strangeness and smuttiness because rather than limit its appeal, limited funds give the movie an eccentric flavor that certainly wouldn’t be possible if a recognizable studio were behind the scenes.

The movie’s trailer gets you hooked right away. There are very few things in life that are both as shitty and as suspenseful as this:

The last time I was so anxious to find out what was in a container, the surprise ended up being Gwyneth Paltrow’s head.

Basket Case was directed by self-described “exploitation filmmaker” Frank Henenlotter, who went on to create other B-movie classics like Frankenhooker and Brain Damage. Judging from his website, Henenlotter has a penchant for posing dead in front of various international landmarks and a love for sexploitiation movies.

He also has lots of self-awareness about his movie, which was reflected in the film’s marketing where he relied on an offhand and sarcastic comment from reviewer Rex Reed. In a conversation with Henenlotter, Reed said the movie was, “the sickest movie I’ve ever seen.” Although the comment wasn’t meant for praise, nor was it used in a published review, Henenlotter ran with it and placed the comment on posters alongside the Village Voice’s tagline, “More disgustingly human than the lovable E.T.” Henenlotter also got excited when New York Post reviewers allegedly said Basket Case was “the worst movie we have ever seen.” Henenlotter figured the comment would end up attracting people to the theater, so his reaction to the Post’s review was, “Oh, thank you so much!” Simply put, Henenlotter understands that his movie is gross and low-grade.

“I think the reason people like it [Basket Case] is because it’s so primitive and dumb and sloppy,” he told Vice. “I don’t think anyone enjoys Basket Case because it’s good filmmaking, I think people enjoy it because it’s just a fun time, you know.”

Given the budget (about $90,000 adjusted for inflation), Henenlotter was pretty much limited to a producing something “primitive.” He figured the film would only play in “Skid Row theaters” in New York City. So how did they make a film so cheap?

“We built the sets out of basically canvas or anything else we could find,” Henenlotter told MovieWeb. His crew sensed “there were certain nights you would throw out heavy objects in New York. ‘Is that a toilet bowl someone threw out? Is it clean? Let’s use it for the film.’ We saw these cardboard rolls someone was throwing out. We grabbed those and they became all the pipes you see in the hotel. That’s the way you do it.”

The film’s cheap budget is on full display whenever the evil Siamese twin, Belial, pops up. Belial is a flesh blob who looks like a head and arms smashed together. While laughing hysterically, Belial’s brother Duane describes him as, “Deformed! A freak! He looks like a squashed octopus!”

Here’s a juxtaposed picture of Belial and his healthier and better-looking brother Duane.

(It looks like they have the same nose at least.)

And here’s what they looked like before they were separated.

Belial and Duane are really pissed off that they were separated. So they seek out and murder the doctors responsible for their split. And they murder some other people too, because … why the hell not? And since this is really an exploitation film, whenever they murder someone lots of blood gets splattered around.

Since Belial communicates to Duane telepathically, their “conversations” appear as though Duane is talking to himself while holding some sort of deformed chunk of flesh. It’s sort of like when Han talks to Chewie and you can’t understand anything Chewie says, except in this instance, the Chewie in the comparison (Belial) doesn’t actually utter any sounds.

Another thing that’s a little disorienting is that some scenes featuring Belial are randomly shot with stop motion animation. For example, at about the 40 second mark in the clip below, the film switches to stop motion.

In the tradition of exploitiation movies, the film features some boob and cock shots as Duane streaks around the city. Henenlotter said they never got permission from the city to do scenes outside, let alone nude ones. “No permission, no permits, we just shot it guerrilla style,” he said.

After watching an hour and a half of what appears to be a homemade-like splatter film, the movie follows cinematic tradition by concluding with a long list of credits, which appears to give the film some legitimacy. But unbeknownst to many viewers, the credits are actually mostly fake. Similar to its clever marketing tactics, Basket Case’s disingenuous ending makes its sleaziness feel more sincere.

[Where to stream Basket Case]

Ross Benes (@rossbenes) is working on a book about indirect relationships between sex and society. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Deadspin, and Slate.