BASKET CASE (1982)

ONLY A FEW BITS OF QUIRKY HUMOR SAVE THIS FILM FROM TRASH STATUS

Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - April 2, 1983

Author: Rick Lyman, Inquirer Movie Critic

Duane, the hero of Basket Case, checks into a sleazy New York hotel. You know the kind of place - peeling paint, glaring lights, old winos for comic relief.

He has a big basket under his arm, about the size of a 19-inch portable TV. A cute kid, curly-haired. He looks like a member of the Brady Bunch who got lost on his way to the senior picnic.

What's in the basket? It's not Easter eggs.

Seems that when poor Duane was born, he had a Siamese twin brother sprouting from his right side like a potato - just a pale lump of arms, head and bad teeth. Duane's father, an officious creep, hired three veterinarians to surgically remove the twin and toss it on the trash pile for dead.

Ah, but little did they know that Eli (the twin's name) communicates telepathically with Duane. He was saved from his trash bag and raised in secrecy. And when the movie opens he's living inside the basket.

Why are they in New York? Because Eli wants to have a few words with those three vets. He's there to work out his feelings of aggression.

He does this mostly by jumping on the back of people's necks and carving deep gashes into their faces with his sharp talons (did I forget to mention the talons?). Sometimes he takes a bite out of his adversary's mid- section. Once he simply rubs somebody's face in a drawer full of sharp
surgical instruments.

He's small, but he's strong.

He's got sexual problems, too, but I'd rather not talk about that.

Eli - who is described by Duane as looking like a "squashed octopus" - is made to growl and jump about through the painstaking use of the same kind of animation that used to make the figures slither along in Gumby cartoons.

What saves this low-budget 1982 horror flick from being just another exercise in gory abomination is that writer-director Frank Henenlotter has brought a certain bizarre level of quirky wit to the proceedings: A hooker with a heart of gold wears pajamas with a big smile face on them; Duane tells his Siamese twin, "We'll never be apart"; the vets are named Dr. Needleman and Dr. Kutter. Stuff like that.

Be prepared for the fact that, even though some of the violence is horribly funny, a lot of it is just plain horrible.

Basket Case will be playing Fridays and Saturdays at midnight at the TLA- Roxy Screening Room. Don't bring your parents.

BASKET CASE

Produced by Edgar Ievins, directed and written by Frank Henenlotter, photography by Bruce Torbet, music by Gus Russo, and distributed by Analysis Films; running time, 1 hour, 29 mins. * **SINGLEG*Duane - Kevin van Hentenryck

Sharon - Teri Susan Smith

Casey - Beverly Bonner

Parents' guide: (No MPAA rating, but contains violence and nudity)
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SCHLOCKY SCREEN SCREAMS - TWO TERROR-BLE FILMS: 'XTRO' AND 'BASKET CASE'

Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - April 4, 1983

Author: JOE BALTAKE, Daily News Movie Reviewer

* "Xtro." A thriller starring Philip Sayer, Bernice Steges and Simon Nash. Directed by Harry Bromley Davenport from a script by Iain Casi and Robert Smith. Photographed by John Metcalfe. Music by Davenport. Creature by Francis Coates. Running Time: 85 minutes. Rated R. At the Goldman Twin, 15th St., between Chestnut and Market. (Screened at the Goldman Twin).

* "Basket Case." A comedy thriller starring Kevin Van Hentenryck and Teri Susan Smith. Written and directed by Frank Henenlotter. Photographed by Bruce Torbet. Music by Gus Russo. Running Time: 85 minutes. Not rated. Shown at Midnight every Friday and Saturday at the TLA-Roxy, 2021 Sansom St. (Screened at the TLA-Roxy)

It's no secret that movie terror has become determinedly unwholesome, what with most of the on-screen carnage being the direct result of someone's (or something's) insatiable appetite for control.

What is surprising - and perhaps even more dubious - is that most modern horror films are content with being affably terrible. They work at being funny-bad - schlocky - and in both Harry Bromley Davenport's British import, ''Xtro," and Frank Henenlotter's midnight flick, "Basket Case," we have schlock horror movies that stress their ineptitude with swaggering pride.

One only wishes that they were worse. (That way, they'd be better. Get it?) What I'm saying is that these are two oedipal horrorfests (about bloodthirsty relatives) whose tackier details and overall cheapness fail to work in their favor.

Of the two, "Xtro" is the most pathetic, a lurid movie made for people of sociopathic tastes or for junk-movie addicts looking for something a little kinky. Its ads imply that "Xtro" is a nasty put-down of Steven Spielberg's ''E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial." But its nastiness is closer to David Cronenberg's "The Brood."

Its oedipal plot is about a towheaded boy named Tony (Simon Nash) whose father is really an alien being. Three years ago, dad (Philip Sayer) got weary of being an earthbound human (obviously, a fate worse than death), regained his former scaly/-

sticky appearance and disappeared in a flash of light.

Tony has been having nightmares ever since and, lately, they've been more intense. That's because his dad is en route from his planet to claim little Tony.

To accomplish this, dad has to transform himself into a human again, and, to accomplish this, he has to be reborn. This particular sequence and the scenes detailing alien intercourse are singularly unpleasant. Sitting through them is roughly akin to having a double-barrel rifle pointed between your eyes. "Xtro" is an endurance ordeal.

In terms of special effects, "Xtro" is amusing. It's the kind of movie that would use hubcaps for flying saucers if it could get away with it.

Much more amusing - at least, diabolically funny - is "Basket Case," a self-concious black comedy that already has gained ground as a cult favorite in New York.

Its oedipal plot is about a sweet, emotionally stunted kid named Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) who lugs around the lardlike body of his former Siamese twin brother, Eli, in a huge basket.

Whereas "Xtro" is determined to do violence to our minds, "Basket Case" is content with merely jabbing at our thoughts. It is more concerned with being casually funny but works too hard at it to provoke anything more robust than a giggle.

Of course, depending on your priorities, you might find humor in its grotesquely untalented performers, atrocious lighting, haphazard compositions, stop-action animation and dogged avoidance of logic: Its plot is about Eli wanting to punish the three veterinarians (yes, veterinarians) who separated him from Duane - a plot that is as unenthralling as it is obviously unconvincing.
Caption: PHOTO