A lover of shoddy exploitation movies since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, New York filmmaker Frank Henenlotter didn’t have to go to film school to learn his craft.
His education was carried out in the fleapits of 42nd Street, wallowing in the sleaziest titles imaginable. He then burst onto the movie scene as an auteur in his own right with Basket Case (1982), an outrageous tongue-in-cheek gore flick about a disturbed young man who carries his deformed telepathic mutant twin around in a basket.
This was followed a few years later by Brain Damage (1988), an equally bizarre tale about a monster parasite who likes to eat brains.
In 1990, Frank was back on the scene as the double director of two typically off-the-wall horror flicks shot back-to-back in New York in Autumn 1989: Frankenhooker and Basket Case 2.
The sequel is twice as barmy as its predecessor, bringing back the deformed Belial and his Siamese twin brother (with Kevin Van Hentenryck reprising his role of Duane Bradley) for murderous mayhem in a house of freaks.
The film begins immediately where the first film ended. After surviving a dramatic fall from a New York City hotel window, Duane and Belial are hospitalised and exposed to the public eye.
Before the media can fully exploit them, their long-lost Aunt, an eccentric philanthropist known as Granny Ruth (played by jazz singer Annie Ross), rescues them and takes the brothers to her secluded country mansion, a hidden sanctuary for dozens of other bizarrely deformed “unique individuals”.
Like Belial, Eve is a bodiless torso consisting primarily of a face, two arms, and a mass of flesh. She wears a small wig and instantly captures Belial’s heart.
Frog Boy (Tom Franco) looks exactly like a giant, humanoid frog and communicates in loud, guttural frog croaks; Platehead (Nick Roberts) has a wide open split at the top of his skull with a metal dinner plate permanently wedged flat into his head; Half Moon (David Emge) has a head shaped like a giant, vertical crescent moon; Huge Arthur (Marianne Carlson) is a towering freak with an enormous, bulbous nose and a severely distorted face; Toothy has an oversized mouth crowded with a massive, terrifying row of teeth; and one of the freaks has a face covered in a cluster of multiple noses . . .
When aggressive tabloid reporter Marcie Elliott (Kathryn Meisle) and a private detective named Phil (Ted Sorel) track the brothers down, the freak residents unite and use their bizarre physical traits violently to protect their secret home.
After Granny Ruth and her special residents violently murder the detective and permanently deform the reporter, the creatures throw a victory party. Up in the attic, Belial and his new mutant love interest, Eve, consummate their relationship in a bizarre, screeching monster sex scene.
Duane decides to leave Belial with Eve and asks Granny Ruth’s granddaughter, Susan (Heather Rattray), to run away with him.
But Susan reveals that although she looks “normal”, she has been pregnant for six years, but the heavily deformed mutant baby inside her refuses to be born and simply lives comfortably inside her stomach indefinitely.
She pulls back her clothing to reveal heavy surgical scars from failed Caesarean sections. Suddenly, a grotesque mutant creature emerges directly out of her stomach to snap at Duane.
With his mind broken, Duane murders Susan and forcibly sews Belial back onto his own side, violently reversing the surgical separation they underwent when they were children.
The screen cuts to black on this deeply unsettling image, setting up the absolute madness of Basket Case 3: The Progeny.
Duane Bradley
Kevin Van Hentenryck News Woman
Judy Grafe Granny Ruth
Annie Ross Susan
Heather Rattray News Man
Chad Brown Casey
Beverly Bonner Police Commissioner
Leonard Jackson Nurse Sherri
Alexandra Auder Cop
Brian Fitzpatrick Desk Clerk
Gale Van Cott Sick Old Man
Kuno Sponholz Marcie Elliott
Kathryn Meisle Security Guard
Dominic Marcus Snoring Cop
Doug Anderson Lou the Editor
Jason Evers Lyle Barker
Jan Saint Arty
Matt Mitler Clancy
Michael Rubenstein Phil
Ted Sorel Worm Man
George Andros Aries Mouse Face
Deborah Bauman Huge Arthur
Marianne Carlson Half Moon
David Emge Pearl
Jim Farley Leon
Ron Fazio
Joseph Leavengood Frog Boy
Tom Franco Ellice
Jeri LeShay Toothy
Matt Malloy
Jeffrey Danneman Brainiac
Jody Oliver Platehead
Nick Roberts Man with 27 Noses
Michael Rogen Frederick the Pinhead
Sturgis Warner
Director
Frank Henenlotter
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The film begins immediately where the first film ended. After surviving a dramatic fall from a New York City hotel window, Duane and Belial are hospitalised and exposed to the public eye.
But Susan reveals that although she looks “normal”, she has been pregnant for six years, but the heavily deformed mutant baby inside her refuses to be born and simply lives comfortably inside her stomach indefinitely.
