Overview: The feature debut of director Frank Henenlotter (Brain Damage, Frankenhooker), 1982’s Basket Case is a riotous and blood-spattered “midnight movie” experience, now presented for the first time ever on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray.

Duane Bradley seems like a pretty ordinary guy. His formerly conjoined twin Belial, on the other hand, is a deformed creature who lives in a wicker basket. Arriving in the Big Apple and taking up a room at a seedy hotel, the pair set about hunting down and butchering the surgeons responsible for their separation.

Filmed on a shoestring budget against the backdrop of 1980s New York (where it played on the midnight movie circuit for over two-and-a-half years), Basket Case has clawed its way from its humble origins to become one of the most celebrated cult movies of all time.

Blu-ray Verdict: Basket Case is an ultra-cheap monster film created by neophyte filmmaker Frank Henenlotter with a tongue-in-cheek approach, one which either catch on with audiences seeking offbeat cult pictures or just didn’t get it at all! In truth, general audiences were more likely to be bewildered by the black humor approach to a case history story, as we have since discovered.

The movie concerns a young man Duane (Kevin Van Hetenryck) from Glens Falls in Upstate New York, who come us to the Big Apple and checks into a seedy 42nd St. Hotel carrying a large wicker basket. A lengthy mid-film flashback sequence ultimately reveals he is bent on revenge, carried out by his Siamese twin monstrous brother Belial (residing in the basket), killing off the three doctors who separated them surgically at age 10.

Henenlotter is overly cryptic in delaying necessary exposition until midway through the picture, as well as overdoing the gimmick of one-sided conversations of Duane responding to telepathic messages from Belial, but handles suspense sequences well. Acting styles vary (creating intentional camp humor), but the leads are fine: Van Hentenryck creating great sympathy as a neurotic, Timothy Hutton-esque youngster and girlfriend Terri Susan Smith (as a doctor’s receptionist) emerging in blonde wig as an ingratiating performer. Robert Vogel in the stock role of a harried hotel manager gets some big laughs by forcefully playing it straight.

Key to the movie’s success (or failure, whichever way you looked at it, I guess) was the reaction to the monster, a rubbery little concoction which combines pathos with genuine strangeness. Seen too often (and in too close proximity) to be really all that convincing (albeit back then we had different CGI and physical effects at our disposal), Belial sports startling red, flexible eyes (lit from within), realistic teeth and for insert shots, pupper-worn hands.

And for that alone, in my book, makeup men Kevin Haney and John Caglione Jr. fully deserve a nod for creating something nice on the cheap, but Henenlotter’s occasional silly stop-motion animation of the monster is a failure, sorry.

Technical credits, in general, for me are a drawback, particularly the variable sound recording, grainy blowup from 16mm and shrill musical score. With quick cutaways during violent scenes, what we actually got to see back then was short on gore, but this brand new 4K edition seems to allow the so-called hard version to have kept director Henenlotter’s gore intact.

In closing, most of the credits that appear at the end of the film are fake. The crew was very small and, rather than repeat the same names over and over again, they decided to just make up names!

4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS:
4K restoration from the original 16mm negative by MoMA
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original uncompressed PCM mono audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Audio commentary with writer/director Frank Henenlotter and star Kevin VanHentenryck
Archival audio commentary with Frank Henenlotter, producer Edgar Ievins, actor Beverly Bonner and filmmaker Scooter McRae
Basket Case 3-1/2: An Interview with Duane Bradley – short film by Frank Henenlotter
Me and the Bradley Boys – interview with actor Kevin VanHentenryck
A Brief Interview with Director Frank Henenlotter – a strange 2017 interview with the director
Seeing Double: The Basket Case Twins – interview with actors Florence and Maryellen Schultz
Blood, Basket and Beyond – interview with actor Beverly Bonner
The Latvian Connection – featurette including interviews with producer Edgar Ievins, casting person/actor Ilze Balodis, associate producer/special effects artist Ugis Nigals and Belial performer Kika Nigals
Belial Goes to the Drive-In – interview with film critic Joe Bob Briggs
Basket Case at MoMA – footage from the 2017 restoration premiere
What’s in the Basket? – feature-length documentary covering the three films in the Basket Case series
In Search of the Hotel Broslin – archival location featurette
The Frisson of Fission: Basket Case, Conjoined Twins, and ‘Freaks’ in Cinema – video essay by Travis Crawford
Slash of the Knife (1976, 30 mins) – short made by Frank Henenlotter featuring many of the same actors from Basket Case, including optional audio commentary with Frank Henenlotter and playwright Mike Bencivenga
Basket Case and Slash of the Knife outtakes
Belial’s Dream (2017, 5 mins) – animated short by filmmaker Robert Morgan
Extensive image galleries
Trailers, TV & radio spots
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sara Deck
Double-sided fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sara Deck
Collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by Michael Gingold and a Basket Case comic strip by artist Martin Trafford

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