Great Film overall

A Major Disappointment

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

I am a fan of the first two BASKETCASE movies. The original was a gritty looking piece of grindhouse horror that met all the criteria of that genre. The second was a worthy follow up that continued the story of the conjoined brothers who had been separated but remained together. Then they decided to make a follow up, a film that went straight to video.Having been discovered by the press and the police, Granny Ruth (Annie Ross) takes her troop of "freaks" on the road to escape. Heading to the Deep South and the home of a friend to the "family", this road trip offers various moments of humor among the group. It also lets us realize that Eve, the girlfriend of the series "hero" Belial, is expecting a brood of children.At the end of the second film the relationship between brothers Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) and Belial wasn't very good. Duane had lost his mind for a while and the two were at odds. After arriving at the home in the South, Duane leaves the compound and heads out on his own only to be captured by the local sheriff's department. Realizing he is a wanted man they immediately realize his brother must be in the house and they head out to capture him as well. Instead they find the newborns and take them in. Big mistake. The end result is gore filled and expected but what happens in the movie is not.Sure we have the same cast of characters brought together once more by director/writer Frank Henenlotter. But the once polished story seems to have lost a little of its glimmer with this film. The surprise at seeing the group of "freaks" is no longer something that stuns. The behavior of Duane, Belial and even Granny Ruth is more predictable this time around. The stupid actions of the local sheriff's office feel stereotypical rather than realistic. Not all law enforcement outside of the confines of New York City are the country bumpkins they are usually portrayed as.The gore factor here is turned up a notch but doesn't offer anything frightening or new. Whenever a movie series moves forward it seems that everyone feels more is better but that's not always the case. Sure some scenes require it and perhaps the fact that this movie came out 9 years after the first means that more was acceptable than in the earlier incarnation. But at times it feels cartoonish and not needed.The end result is that the movie can be fun and does round out the trilogy well enough. But it isn't one that will bring back fond memories like the first two films in the series do for me. Still fans will want to make sure that they add this to their collection to make it complete. Horror fans will want to make a point of at least watching it to say they've done so. And with any luck we won't find out that a remake is in the works planned by people who have no concept of why the movie worked in its original incarnation.Kudos to Synapse for producing a quality version of the film for those who love it. That they would go to the effort to do so shows their dedication to preserving movies that many will overlook, a sad situation with far too many films. Extras are the most minor, a theatrical trailer, but by the time this movie came out the odds of finding much to use as an extra were pretty slim. Suffice to say that the transfer is worthy of the series and well done.

(18%) The wheels started wobbling with the first sequel, and by the second the chassis is well and truly scraping along the road surface. The movie opens with the grand (and repeated) sight of two latex monsters humping which sets the tone for the rest of the run time as horror takes a back seat for "comedy" to run riot. Many of the crazy creations from the 2nd film return and yet again don't really do anything but clown around, dance and mumble incoherently. There are some half decent ideas floating around, but everything is just so over-the-top and it all feels like a joke taken too far for its own good. The bus sing along scene is toe curlingly hard to watch, but Kevin Van Hetenryck's expression just about saves it. One for die-hard fans only.

The third and thankfully last of Frank Henenlotter's BASKET CASE trilogy. I've watched all three recently; the first was a semi-decent and gory B-movie with grindhouse overtones, but the second descended into high camp and had no discernible storyline. The third starts out like the second, kicking off with the various freaks from the second film going on a cross-country bus trip due to the impending birth of Belial's child.It's as bad as it sounds, and completely ridiculous. Henenlotter wallows in the cheesy costumes and absurdity of the situation, but it's not enough to make this a decent film. However, around the second half of the film, things begin to pick up. It all starts with a strong, TERMINATOR-inspired rampage at a police station which recalls the grisly horror of the original movie, and from that point in it bears much in comparison with the first film in the series which is a definite good thing.This is certainly no classic, but seeing Belial in full-on monster mode is a lot of fun and it's almost as if Henenlotter decided to go back to his roots. It's not perfect, but then when is B-movie film-making ever fun? One of the biggest problems in the second and third films is Kevin Van Hentenryck's nominal lead, Duane. Once his secret is out in the open after the first movie, he becomes the dullest character imaginable and nothing can change that. Never mind - at least Belial is a bad guy again!

The third installment in the Basket Case series takes up where the second left off, with Duane staying at the rest home for freaks. His brother has found a girlfriend who is much like him (a leg-and-torso-less freak) named Eve. He does the nasty with her (which you actually get to see, no comment.) and she's about to give birth. Granny Ruth and the freaks (with some new additions since the last movie) head down to Georgia to her ex-husband's house, because his son is the only one who knows how to deliver babies from freaks, I guess. Since Duane went crazy and tried to stitch Belial back on in the last film, he's not allowed to talk to his brother. So, still being half-crazy, he tells the sheriff's daughter that he is one of the infamous Bradley twins in hopes that they'll lock him up with his brother. Two police officers kidnap Belial's babies by mistake and Belial gets his revenge down at the police station later. This is by far the best part of the movie, what Belial does to these three cops can only be described as three of the most over-the-top death scenes in horror movie history. If you liked the second Basket Case movie chances are you'll like this one better. The series just get goofier and more over the top as they go on, and almost every minute of this movie is not quite "right". Watch if you have a deranged sense of humor.