52 Pick-Up #43 – Basket Case (1981)

Ho-lee crap.

Okay, normally I don't open quite that bluntly, but this is one where I kind of needed to.

Okay. Compose yourself. Structure.

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up, my yearlong journey through my cinematic to do list.

Also, a happy Halloween, as we are now less than 48 hours as of this going live, and oh MAN, is this gonna be a fun one to ring this in with.

So, this is gonna be a little more free form than some of my prior entries have been. I did like to give myself a little time to think and compose clear thoughts on the movies I've watched.

For a movie like Basket Case, I feel like dwelling on it does a gross disservice. I need to shoot this one from the hip and hope you'll bear with me for it.

So...the pitch.

Basket Case takes us to the wonderfully grimy cinematic side of early 80s New York that helped fuel so many insane right wing fantasies to this day. In this city, we're introduced to Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck), a shy young man who seems a fish out of water with a goal to fulfill and a basket at his side.

...okay. Screw it. There's no way I can keep this going without some spoilage, and honestly? If you don't know this part of the story already, I'm impressed.

So, what's in the basket? Oh. Nothing. Just Duane's stunted, mutant twin brother Belial. Oh, excuse me – stunted, mutant, homicidal twin brother. Belial's got some scores to settle and Duane is happy to assist.

There. That's as far as I'm willing to go into detail. There's more to how genuinely strange Belial's backstory is, but I've gotta leave some surprises to justify watching this.

Not that it would hurt to reveal that here. This is something that truly needs to be seen to be believed.

Which is where my real reflex comes in here – this movie is absolutely batshit insane.

And I loved it.

Okay. I know I should explain myself a little more here.

The insanity? Well, I feel a LITTLE bad for giving it away, but I point you to the screenshot of Belial here. Yes, Belial is a hand puppet that looks like a mound of Fluff developed sentience and the first emotion it discovered is pure, seething, bloodthirsty hatred. There's so many productions that would be embarrassed of something like this.

This movie? It goes for it. It fucking GOES for it. It goes all in. The actors who are being attacked by Belial are committing to the idea that they are being violently thrashed by this weird little puppet. Van Hentenryck plays sincerely good with his brother puppet – who he also voices, by the way. And OH does he voice him. As Belial, Van Hentrenryck offers a litany of bizarre grunts, squeals and wails on the level of Gunnar Hansen in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and he does it with such genuine energy and fury that I would love to see behind the scenes footage of him recording Belial's noises, because I have to feel like that is a full body delivery.

Plus, when Belial isn't wrestling with a surprisingly dedicated actor? That weird little mutant puppet isn't always a puppet. We also get some scenes of Belial rampaging in stop motion that are something truly special to watch. There is a particular moment of Belial singlehandedly laying waste to a hotel room that had me genuinely cackling for both how absurd and how sincerely it was done.

I've seen a lot of films of varying quality this year. I've seen some I would say are artistically stunning with a lot of high acclaim.

I can't really say Basket Case is one of them. Having said that, I will still wholeheartedly endorse it, because it is so committed to its unique brand of batshit that it becomes a delight to watch.

If you have a taste for cheese, by all means. Seek this one out if you haven't already. In fact, if you listen carefully right now, you may hear the light sound of me kicking my own ass for not having watched this sooner.

Just...give it a watch. I guess that's really what this comes down to.

Whew. This was definitely a bit more freeform than I usually do with these, but what can I say? This movie almost defies a more rigid format, and after this month, I needed something entertaining like this to close out.

Which, again, close out we must. As October comes to an end and I make my way to the final two months of this adventure.

Once again, a Happy Halloween, and I will see you all again in November, where I'll be kicking off the format with a first for this series – I'm going into an anthology movie.

See you then for Robot Carnival.

Till then.