Basket Case 3: The Progeny Reviews

What's in the basket this year? As it happens, writer-director Frank Henenlotter has taken an interest in keeping his cult series from repeating itself, and BASKET CASE 3 feels more like an honest continuation of its predecessors' story than most low-budget sequels. Of course, familiarity has taken the edge off the horror by this point in the saga, but Henenlotter evidently realized this and has made the third installment the most overtly humorous of the three. The story reunites the by-now-unbalanced Duane Bradley (Kevin Van Hentenryck) with his deformed, murderous twin Belial, yet it separates them too. After Duane tried to sew Belial back onto his side at the end of the last film, Belial has become angry with his brother and refuses to come out of his basket to see him, despite the entreaties of their keeper, Granny Ruth (Annie Ross). The new sequel continues the psychology of mutants theme from BASKET CASE 2, and also builds upon its most bizarre moment, the love scene between Belial and his lookalike girlfriend, Eve. As the new movie opens, Eve is expecting, and the brothers, Granny Ruth and the rest of her freakish charges head south to visit Uncle Hal (Dan Biggers), a doctor who can make this very unusual delivery. BASKET CASE 3 hits a high point during their road trip as the freaks engage in a singalong, belting out the old tune "Personality" while Ross scat-sings an accompaniment. (As a founding member of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, the seminal vocal jazz group, Ross wrote and recorded "Twisted," later popularized by Joni Mitchell, which in part explains her association with the BASKET CASE series.) Once they arrive at their destination, a small town in Georgia, Duane briefly meets an attractive girl named Opal (Tina Louise Hilbert) before the group arrives at Uncle Hal's mansion. The freaks make themselves at home, and Uncle Hal, assisted by his enormous, multi-armed son Little Hal (James O'Doherty), helps Eve with her birth. The result is a dozen little baby Belials, and the assembled "family" is ecstatic, especially since Duane and Belial have been reconciled. But tragedy awaits; local sheriff Andrew Griffith (Gil Roper) has become suspicious of the goings-on at the mansion, and two of his deputies break into the house, where they suddenly happen upon the sleeping Eve and awaken her. Terrified by the sight, they shoot her dead with a shotgun, then steal the bassinet full of baby Belials as the freaks attempt to give chase. The deputies bring the bassinet to the police station; Duane, meanwhile, is also arrested and thrown into one of the cells in the back. While he's imprisoned, Opal, who turns out to be the sheriff's daughter, arrives; proving to be a closet dominatrix, she attempts to seduce him. But then a suspicious-looking basket turns up on the front doorstep; inside, of course, is Belial, who attacks the deputies remaining in the station. In the ensuing melee, the lawmen and Opal are all killed and Duane escapes. Back at the mansion, Little Hal helps Belial assemble a mysterious device, which he uses to kill off the surviving deputies in their home. When the sheriff goes to confront Duane again, he finds out what this creation is: an enormous exo-skeleton piloted by Belial. A terrible fight ensues, ending with the sheriff falling face-first into the basket of baby Belials. When last seen, the freaks are overrunning a TV talk show.... BASKET CASE 3 may be Henenlotter's (BRAIN DAMAGE, FRANKENHOOKER) slickest film yet, and those who enjoyed the gritty, grainy original may be put off by what appears to be an attempt to go mainstream. But the director's off-the-wall sensibilities are as evident here as ever, and the "Personality" singalong and Eve's birthing of the 12 lookalike infants are wonderfully weird highlights. Both of these sequences occur before the movie's midpoint, which helps, since the story isn't quite as strong as it was in BASKET CASE 2. That film created some memorable antagonists in its tabloid reporter and sleazy detective; here, the Bradleys and company run up against a sheriff and his deputies, a more standardized movie threat. But if the plot isn't quite as compelling this time around, there are many memorable individual scenes, some of them effective straight horror (especially Eve's fate at the hands of the panicked deputies), more of them blackly comic. It helps that Henenlotter has a cast that's right on the movie's twisted wavelength, including returning stars Van Hentenryck and Ross, who still seem completely at ease performing with a cast of made-up monsters; Roper, the stalwart sheriff who doesn't let the freaks faze him either; and Hilbert, who possesses the same cool beauty as BASKET CASE 2's Heather Rattray, as the surprisingly kinky sheriff's daughter. The film, co-written by Robert Martin, looks great on a low budget, and although Gabe Bartalos and Dave Kindlon's special effects and makeup are more clever than convincing, they do a fine job on Belial himself, as well as the robotic creation he commandeers in the movie's later sequences. (Excessive violence, profanity, sexual situations.)