Basket Case

All I wanna do with my review of "Basket Case" is just make it one sentence long. And that sentence would read: "This is greatest fucking b-movie ever made ever in the history of the world." Then give my rating and go in my kitchen and start making dinner. But I suppose I have to back up such an extreme claim by telling you what happens in this movie. So I shall.

Some dorky looking doctor is leaving what I guess is his house for what I guess is a house call at night. He spots some trees moving and then a bush and instantly runs inside. Scared of the wind, are we Dr. Dork? He calls the police (seriously) on the wind when suddenly all the lights go off and the phone is disconnected. Soon a weird hand pops into screen and kills Thaddus Q. Dork, Ph.D. Ok, that's not his name, his name is Dr. Liftlander.

Duane is roaming around New York City carrying a wicker basket. If you read the character descriptions above, or you know ANYTHING about this movie, you know that inside is his deformed twin brother. But you possibly don't know the how or the why's of the situation (unless you seen it before) and therein lies the fun part of this movie.

Duane comes across a shady hotel that has hourly rates. Not getting it, he rents a room for "a few days" and pulls out a wad of cash like he's Jay-Z or Diddy or whatever he's calling himself now. Some drunk dude hanging out with the hotel manager notices the money and we're left with a big flashing "remember him" sign. And since this is one of those types of hotels, the sign is neon.

While feeding his brother in the basket rolled up foil (I suppose there's food inside but whatever), we discover that Duane and Basket-Bro is on a mission, to seek out the doctors that separated the two brothers. The next doctor up is Dr. Needleman.

I'm guessing Needleman was an actual doctor at some point in time but had his license revoked or something, but he signed up with that program Sally Struthers use to offer on TV in the 80's (before the "feed the starving kids" thing) and now he's a "practicing" doctor again. I'm judging this by the sight of his "office" which looks like a broom closet with some walls and a few chairs.

The Receptionist thinks Duane is the typewriter repair man and after chewing his ear off about it for five minutes realizes her mistake. Duane uses a fake name to get into the doctor's office and he goes in with the basket in tow.



Now I thought the whole thing was Duane was gonna bring the basket in, open it, Basket-Bro leaps out and kills the doctor and that's that. But instead, Duane leaves and the doctor's still alive. So...what the hell happened inside? We don't really know. We kinda get a hint later, cause Needleman knows now that he's the same Duane he operated on 20 some years ago.

Apparently there was some romance that I missed cause Duane and Receptionist agree to go on a date, but Duane doesn't want Basket-Bro to hear cause he's the jealous type of blob. And Duane's visit made Needleman nervous cause he spends the rest of the evening just sitting at his desk, sweating, and looking even more slimy. He decides to call a Dr. Kutter, another doctor chick that was there the night Duane and his special blob brother got separated.

Kutter is on some date with a model or a male call girl, er, guy...whatever. She's pissed that this sleazy doctor she met once 20 some years ago called and interrupted her fantasy date. This is the last we see of her for about an hour.

Receptionist goes home, leaving Needleman alone. Duane and Basket-Bro sneak into the doctor's office and Duane lets Basket-Bro out. Here we find out that he spends all his time in the basket lifting weights cause he's able to pull a solid steel door off it's hinges. With Basket-Bro loose, he rips Needleman into half and scales down the side of the building, with the phone number and address to Kutter's.

The next day, Duane tells his brother that he's just going to scope out Kutter's place to see if there's a way to sneak in and there's no need to drag around a big wicker basket. He provides some entertainment in the form of a TV and a newspaper for the small blob and leaves.

Turns out Duane lied! He's actually going out on a date with Receptionist. They're at the Statue of Liberty and both instantly say that they're horny for each other and start making out. Since Duane and the dude in the basket are mentally linked, Basket-Bro flips out and through the clever use of Clay-animation depicts him going on a rampage in the small hotel room.

Every one in the hotel hears the rampage and cause a big ruckus, causing the hotel manager to run into the room. The brother is back into hiding in his basket and all the residents are confused. We focus on the drunk dude who spots the wad of cash just sitting on the dresser. Before he can take it, the hotel manager kicks everyone out of the room. But once alone, drunk dude breaks into the room and attempts to steal the money. When he gets curious about what's inside the basket, well, let's say that the old geezer has gone to the big liquor store in the sky.

Because of the psychic link, Duane knows that his brother has killed and hastily leaves his date to run back home. There, he finds the cops and is told about the dead drunk dude. Duane is questioned by a cop and they search the room for "some animal that Duane no doubtedly smuggled in", but find nothing, not even anything in the basket.

With everyone gone, we find the brother was hiding in the toilet! See, this is just one of the many advantages to being a small deformed human blob-guy, you can hide in the toilet after committing a crime! Imagine robbing a bank, then just hiding out in the bank's bathroom until the cops are gone! I wish I was born a small deformed human blob-guy. Oh well...perhaps some day.

Duane appears to be having a one-sided conversation but his Basket-Bro can communicate to Duane mentally and Duane answers out loud. The reason given is cause since their separation, Duane lost his super twin mental powers, but Baskey still has his. Duane admits to lying about going to Kutters and confesses he was on a date but swears he'll never abandon his brother. Hm, this is starting to feel and sound like "Dead Alive". We just need a zombie. And a kung-fu priest.

Later that night, Duane (along with the basket of course) is out drinking and runs into Casey, the prostitute with a heart of gold. This is obviously Duane's first time drinking and gets really hammered. After sitting in a private booth, Duane gets so drunk that when asked by Casey what's in the basket, he tells her (and us) the full story, which needless to say freaks her the fuck out.

We get a flashback to when Duane and his human growth was born. Giving birth to them killed their mother and the father (who looked a bit like Michael Moriarty but I'm sure it wasn't him) wants to kill the damn thing. Now this is making me think of the beginning of "Batman Returns".

The only person in the family that loved Duane and "Belial", the thing growing on Duane's side was their Aunt. I put Belial's name in quotes cause he's called that maybe twice in the whole movie so I dunno if that's really suppose to be his name or what. Guess it is easier than coming up with basket puns all the time.
Forward twelve years later and some case worker wants to meet the twins cause the Aunt is gonna home school them. When she did, her report read "ACK!!!! BURN IT WITH FIRE!!!" with a big red APPROVED stamp across it.

Sometime even later (maybe even that same day?), Duane overhears a conversation with the twin's father and all three doctors. They say this isn't gonna be approved by any hospital in the country so they have to do this on the hush-hush.

Judging by the money Duane has in NYC and the size of this house, I'm guessing his family was rather wealthy, like maybe his dad was some government official or a doctor or something. None of this is explored of course, we just wanna see a deformed freak that lives in a basket kill people.

The dad and the doctors drag Duane into, seriously, the dining room, which is now transformed into a operating room and they proceed to knock him out and start the operation. It's at this point that I saw what each doctor did and as I glanced down at my notes of characters names that I realized that these doctor's names reflects what role they had. Dr. Kutter did the "cutting", Needleman gave Duane the shot, and Liftlander carried Duane into the room. Seriously, the screenwriter deserves a Pulitzer for this or something.

So they separate Duane and Belial and what they did with Belial is priceless. Duane wakes up and is still mentally linked so he goes outside and find Belial simply placed in a standard garbage bag and placed next to a garbage can. I heard of a dumpster baby, but a dumpster tween? Since they didn't use Glad's Flexibags, Belial busts out and Duane saves him.

Later that night, Dad wakes up to the sounds of hammering and sawing. After roaming around for 20 minutes, Dad finds in the basement this big contraption with a GIANT ASS SAW on wheels. Hm, did someone accidently splice in a scene from one of the "Saw" movies?



With Dad dead, custody of Duane goes to the Aunt, who knows that Belial is still around and they're one big happy family until the Aunt died. And now...we're pretty much caught up. Duane and Belial wants to get revenge on the people that separated them, as I said, and Duane is telling this to a drunk, possibly coked up, hooker.

They go back to their rooms and Duane instantly passes out. Casey looks inside the basket but finds it empty. I thought a "Fight Club" scenario was playing out here and Duane was imagining Belial or something. But nope. When Casey goes to her room and goes to sleep, she finds Belial next to her in bed groping her boobie.

Screaming, all the tenants rush, more screaming, hotel manager is pissed. Same deal as before. Belial goes back into his basket with one of Casey's panties. Eww...

The next morning, Duane wakes up with a hang over and the desire to see Dr. Kutter killed. He and Belial head over to her place to find out she's a veterinarian. Boy, Dad was desperate for a doctor, huh? When the doctor and Duane meet, she instantly realizes who he is and immediately insults him, not putting together the reason why he might be carrying a medium sized basket. Soon, Belail goes to work on Kutter and this is a long kill, with her screaming her head off. She tries to fight back, and Duane doesn't do much of anything, but Belial finally wins when he stuck a bunch of scalpels on her face. Oops sorry, I meant to say IN her face.

Now a fugitive from the law cause everyone saw Duane go inside the office, he disguises himself-

Ok no. That's what SHOULD'VE happened. Instead he just moseys back home where Receptionist is waiting. She tells him Needleman is dead and she's in love with Duane. They go into his room and they're about to fuck when Belial's jealous gets the best of him and makes an appearance. Receptionist freaks out and wants answers but Duane wraps her in a blanket and throws her out. I guess it's cold in the hallway? Since some screaming is happening here comes all the hotel tenants and the hotel manager again. Sheesh, any little thing and these people are on the scene.

Later that night, Belial gets red eyes (I think he needs some Clear Eyes) and leaves. Duane has a vivid dream that he's running the streets of New York City completely naked. Hey ladies, you tired of watching bad movies that don't cater to you? Well, you're in luck. When you put in "Basket Case" you get dong! Lots and lots of dong! And running dong too! Aren't you lucky?

Soon, we're in Receptionist's apartment and we see Duane's hand pull the sheets down and grope her boobie. Man, these guys are as obsessed with boobies as I am. Soon, the POV goes down a bit and starts rocking a bit. Duane wakes up and realizes Belial is gone. He puts his dream together...

What I'm about to tell you is the 100% truth. I swear this happened in this movie, which is part of the reason why this movie gets high praise for me. I can't believe this movie had the balls to do this.

Duane arrives at receptionist's house and Belial is somehow FUCKING HER!! AND there's blood!!!

........WHAT?? What is he fucking her with??? Oh my God this is-I don't know what it is. It's great and disturbing at the same time! I had to pinch myself to make sure I was seeing this. I mean let's break it down. A girl got fucked, TO DEATH, by a deformed human who may or may not have a dick and if he does have a dick, his dick must really be deformed as well to cause her to bleed to death.



This is the greatest movie ever. And we're only getting started.

Duane throws Belial in the basket and when they get into the hotel, he starts fighting with it and yelling at it. Of course hotel manager and all the tenants are there to witness this and when Duane runs into his room, he's about to kill Belial. Hotel manager bursts into the room in time to find Belial coming out of his basket and lifting Duane 15 feet in the air BY HIS NUTS!!!



Holy fucking shit, dude.

Belial then throws Duane outside through the window but Duane grabs on to him so now they're hanging on the hotel sign. Belial strangles Duane and when he dies, Belial lets go and they both go falling to the pavement, instantly dying. Knowing that nothing else could possibly top that for an ending, we get credits.

That's it. I got nothing else to say. This movie fucking rocked my face, ass, stomach, and possibly brain off. I can't believe I've gone this far in life without seeing this movie. And because of the death fucking and nut lifting ALONE I feel it is my duty to make history on the site. For the first time in the three and a half years I've run this site, I must award this movie


-Jason