Last week I treated you all to my opinions on Brain Damage. In the spirit of continuity and my own lack of an imagination, I have decided to tackle an earlier work by the director Frank Henenlotter. Much like it’s spiritual successor Brain Damage, Basket Case charts the adventures of a young man gadding about town with a mysterious and disgusting companion. The gentleman’s name is Dwayne and the companion in question is his monstrously deformed brother Belial. Belial and Dwayne are more than just brothers, they’re siamese twins who were brutally separated against either of their wishes. Despite his monstrous form, Dwayne loves his twin brother dearly. A combination of this fraternal loyalty and his own isolated childhood causes Dwayne to set out with his brother stashed in the titular basket on a quest for revenge.
What I found most striking about Basket Case was the maturity of it’s plot in comparison to Brain Damage. Where Brain Damage contained a more direct message about drug use and addiction, Basket Case attempts to explore more subtle ideas. Chief amongst these is the concept of unrelenting loyalty to one’s family and the limits this loyalty can be pushed to. Dwayne is a fairly interesting character, raised in isolation with only his brother for companionship he is both wide eyed and ruthless. Upon entering the city Dwayne starts to make friends including Sharon, the receptionist of one of the Doctors he wants to murder. Soon the tension mounts as the conflict between Dwayne’s feelings of loyalty to his brother, the murderous nature of their plan and his desire for a normal life grows more intense.
Of course it’s not all meditations on brotherly love when Frank Henenlotter is in the driving seat, there’s also the requisite disturbing sex scene involving a weird puppet/special effect. In Basket Case this takes the form of Belial raping and murdering Sharon whilst telepathically communicating his actions to Dwayne. However strange that sentence sounds, the experiencing of watching the rape occur is made twice as disturbing by the pseudo-dream sequence that precedes it. We see Belial howling out of the window of the hotel room Dwayne and Belial have rented. The scene cuts numerous times between the sight of Dwayne running naked through the streets of New York and lying in bed shaking and sweating. There’s a POV shot of Dwayne’s hand reaching out to molest Sharon as she sleeps that switches to Belial’s deformed claw. It might sound a bit hokey but I found the revelation that I was witnessing Belial and Dwayne’s psychic connection, rather than a hallucinatory dream sequence, quite shocking. That it becomes apparent as Belial severs the only link between Dwayne and a normal life adds even more gravitas to the scene.
Dwayne is by far one of the most interesting characters I’ve seen during my adventures in b-movie reviewing. Part of this might be me reading into a subtext that may not be there but I really found the idea of someone so innocent and yet so utterly remorseless quite fascinating. Dwayne isn’t evil in any traditional sense of the word, yes he helps his brother commit terrible murders but his only motivation is loyalty to a deformed brother who has no one else to connect with. As an attempt at anything but the lowest common denominator of gross-out horror, Basket Case doesn’t provide many scares. If you’re looking for something that will have you on the edge of your seat, look elsewhere. The premeditated murders and the transitory shock value of Belial’s appearance sap much of the dramatic tension. However, as a character study I think Basket Case succeeds. You have to really look for it but there’s a very sad story being told in this film. If you can take your eyes off Belial’s mangled form and focus on Dwayne, that story becomes something well worth experiencing for yourself.
