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By Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Ty Burr is a writer at large for EW and is no relation to Raymond or Aaron

For a movie about a boy and his vicious, misshapen, telepathic, separated Siamese-twin brother, 1982's Basket Case was surprisingly, um, charming. The cut-rate production quality was offset by a script that was as witty as the movie was gory.

Freaks look like the folks of Our Town. Belial even lands a girlfriend. But then a nosy reporter prompts him to hit the warpath again.

Director Henenlotter is no cynical horror hack. In 1988's Brain Damage, he slipped an unpretentious antidrug allegory into a hilarious plot about brain-eating parasites. In Basket Case 2 he quietly questions our idea of normalcy in ways that are funny, startling, campy, and genuinely unnerving.

There's still plenty of carnage and junk-movie laughs. But it's a mark of this movie's thoughtful subversiveness that by the time Duane goes after his killer brother with a baseball bat, the audience may be rooting for the mutant.


Posted May 25, 1990

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