New York-sploitation: Basket Case

Basket Case is a movie I forever thought I had seen, but it turns out there are two movies about men being followed around NYC by little murderous monsters from this time period. This one is more of a family hardships sort of murderous-monster movie, and it's got some twists you really don't see coming.

The plot unfolds something like this: Duane Bradley is a man with a secret, a secret that he carries in a wicker basket with a lock on it. He's made his way to a flophouse hotel in NYC where he hopes to blend into the scenery. (Sadly a young man lugging a gigantic wicker trunk everywhere he goes seems to be one of the few things that will turn the head of a New Yorker.) Bradley's on a mission: find the doctors responsible for separating him and his brother Belial, and make them pay the ultimate price for their sins...




The city: NYC is portrayed in full scum-tastic splendor. The flophouse where he rents a room is held together by grime and is run by the exact stereotype you're imagining. His hotel neighbors range from the shifty petty thief to the sex worker with a heart of gold. Bradley takes an iconic walk through Times Square, drinks in a seedy nightclub, takes in a film in a filthy porno theater, creeps through back alleys and up fire escapes, and throws in a dash of touristy sight seeing, just to round things out.

Beverly Bonner: This movie features Beverly Bonner, who appeared in all three of the Basket Case movies, sometimes as the same character and sometimes as someone else entirely.

The effects: Though the effects in this film are as low-budget as everything else, the filmmakers sort of lean into that rather than attempt to hide it making the cheapness of the effects come off as intentionally cheeky. That (on top of the voice actor's choices for Belial) brings the comedy up a level, but it's very hard to tell if it was done intentionally or not.

Unexpected darkness: There are a few moments that set this movie's tone on the dark end of comedy, but that darkness is well balanced considering how goofy the main character is (and that he carries around gigantic wicker basket with a lock on it for the first act of the film). But you could argue that this is one of the few horror-comedy-tragedy movies in the world, because it gets pretty bleak.

Under appreciated classic: This little bag of weirdness is full of fleshed out characters, unique story elements, classic trashy NYC, and some unexpectedly delightful performances from a myriad of background characters.