Basket Case -
Darryl Revok from
Scanners said it best: "brothers should be close, don't you think?" This horror comedy about an unusual brotherhood successfully explores the highs and lows of keeping things tightly-knit (pardon the pun). The sensation of not being sure if you should laugh or look away is a favorite way to feel, so I am naturally drawn to this genre. This movie does this several times and without making me bored of it. Every appearance of Belial, a.k.a. the basket-dwelling brother, did this for me while making me admire the ingenuity behind the abomination every time. The budget was apparently very low, but in the puppetry and stop motion that brings Belial to life, you would not be able to tell. While I mentioned Scanners, would it be more appropriate to namedrop another Cronenberg movie to compare it to, i.e.
Dead Ringers? Duane and Belial's revenge mission against the doctors who separated them against their will is a riot. However, despite how much more skeezy the movie gets, the movie reaches another level when a woman comes between the brothers. Kevin Van Hentenryck is brilliant as a man whose mask of sanity gets harder to keep on, whether due to his mission or hiding what's really in his basket of "clothes," as is Robert Vogel as the hotel manager for his similar struggle to contain their disturbances. The movie is also enjoyable as a time capsule of pre-Giuliani Manhattan in all its grittiness.
I have mentioned a couple other horror movies about brothers, but this one is very much its own entity, and what a delightfully funny and icky entity it is. It's the kind of movie that makes you feel like you're inside of a grindhouse theater instead of your living room while you're watching it. Again, as funny and gruesome as the romantic rivalry portion is, there are parts of it that haven't aged well. It's still stands as a movie that may not have invented the horror comedy, but it makes you wonder if it did since it's such a definitive example of one.