**potential minor spoilers**
New York, New York, the city that never sleeps. Is it any wonder, what with their problems with CHUDs, crazy mutants in baskets and GG Allin concerts! Not to mention that crazy driller killer! Yes, the mean streets of New York give birth to yet another horror, and this one involves a basket, and a conjoined twin who never wanted to be separated. This is one of those movies that you watch and think, what did I just watch? I am not entirely sure, but it was very entertaining and if you share my sense of humour it was hilarious.
The plot, as you might have gathered involves conjoined twins on a revenge mission. They never wanted to be separated, so the Doctors and Surgeons have got trouble, double trouble. Dwayne, one half of this dynamic duo, arrives in New York carrying his clothes basket. He looks like someone who might be a serial killer, but in 1980s New York he just blends right in. He finds a hotel full of crazy people, rents a room, and gets to work. His modus operandi, carry basket to where Doctor works, release mutant brother, then pop him back into his basket after he has finished his bloody revenge. Like all good things it doesn't last, a romantic relationship develops between Dwayne and a Doctors receptionist. Somehow he managed to find a woman who overlooks his basket fetish, she is of course unhinged. Will true romance tame the conjoined beast? Come on, you know it won't, this is 1980s New York! They are doomed.
Basket Case reminds me a bit of another movie called Blue Sunshine. Not in terms of plot, they are very different, but they are both movies that walk that fine line between horror and surreal comedy, If that is what the movie set out to achieve then I applaud it. The highlight of this movie in my opinion is not the mutant monster or Dwayne but the array of strange characters they encounter. The strange people in the hotel, the nurses, the Doctors and the best of all, his lunatic love interest. She is just jaw dropping amazing, she scared me more than any mutant in a basket. At least you can lock the mutant in a basket. Then we have one of the strangest moments in the movie, Dwayne is running completely naked through the streets, but he isn't, it is some sort of pyschic link with his twin, I think?
If you enjoyed a movie like Blue Sunshine you will enjoy basket case. The acting is generally good, that is, completely over acting, chewing on the scenery style good. Subtlety has no place in a movie of this type, it embraces what it is and is all the better for it. The monster in the movie is ridiculously over the top, and somewhat annoyingly spends a lot of the time screaming or eating. A minor quibble, the rest of the movie is pure trashy New York goodness. Embrace it, watch it.
7 out of 10
Summary: surreal, entertaining, and funny.