The 1982 low budget flick, Basket Case, is a cult classic—and deservedly so. It’s a bloody good time. We’re happy to report that we’ve got some previously unseen outtakes from the film to share with you, dear reader. But first, a little background.
Basket Case was written and directed by Frank Henenlotter, a young filmmaker, who, up until that point, had just a few short films to his credit. The movie follows formerly conjoined brothers, Duane and Belial, on the hunt for revenge after a forced surgery separated them. Belial is incredibly deformed, so Duane keeps him hidden from view, carting his sibling around in a basket. This leads to a frequently asked question; it’s also the picture’s catch phrase.
“What’s in the basket?”
Shot in New York City, the entire budget amounted to $35,000. Nearly all the expenses went towards buying and processing 16mm film, as well as generating oodles of fake blood. Henenlotter was greatly influenced by the “Godfather of Gore,” Herschell Gordon Lewis (Basket Case was dedicated to Lewis).
Last year, I spoke with Gus Russo, who not only composed the top-notch score for Basket Case, but pitched in in other ways, too. He told me some of the ingenious ways the production saved money, as there was so little of it to go around.
The lights were basically car headlights that he (the lighting guy) had screwed onto a two-by-four [laughs]. The walls in the hotel and in all of the hallways and rooms that you see, that’s just canvas hanging from the ceiling that we painted to look like walls. What we did was, Edgar (Ievins, the producer) and I, we would go out at night, scrounging the Upper East Side, in the alleyways—because those people would throw out furniture and pieces of lumber, pieces of canvas—and we’d drag it back down to his apartment, and that became the sets. Almost everything you see in that movie is garbage.
Belial was made of latex, and the stop-motion technique was used to animate the little guy. For scenes in which only Belial’s arm is seen, a crew member would don a latex glove.
The special effects makeup was done by Kevin Haney and John Caglione, Jr. Both were soon hired by Saturday Night Live, and later won Academy Awards for their work.
The picture premiered at the Waverly, a New York theater, in 1982. In a move inspired by the gimmicks devised by legendary producer William Castle, surgical masks were handed out to ticket holders “to keep the blood off your face.”
Prominent movie critic Rex Reed said that Basket Case was “the sickest movie I’ve ever seen.” Viewed as a badge of honor, the quote was incorporated into the advertising for the film. Reed’s critique wasn’t taken from a formal review, but was said to Henenlotter by Reed when the director spotted the critic leaving a theater after a screening and asked him what he thought. Reed didn’t realize he was talking to the director—HA!
Keep reading after the jump…