Review #76: Basket Case (1982)

This review was originally written in October 2019.

October Horror Movie Review #24: Basket Case

This movie was recommended to me, with the suggestion that I not watch any trailers before doing so; I didn't watch a trailer, and now that I've seen the movie I can understand why. There's (sort of) a big part of the plot that is intended as a reveal about halfway or so through the film, and treating that as a spoiler makes it kind of difficult to talk about what this movie is actually about; but I'll do my best.

Basket Case is a bizarre film about a young man named Duane who travels to New York on important personal business, carrying around with him a large basket. He talks to whatever is inside the basket, he feeds it, and it seems to be a part of whatever business he is trying to get done. However, exactly what- or who- is inside this basket is dangerous, and has a closer connection with Duane than you might think...

This movie seems to be billed as a Comedy/Horror, but to be honest I didn't really think it was very funny. (And I don't mean that as an insult; I didn't really pick up much intent to be funny, and most of the times I laughed came from its low-budget effects and bad acting.) If I were to categorize it in a way that I would feel is accurate, I'd call it something like "Horror That Understands Its Low Budget And Has Fun Making The Best Of It." But that's not a genre.... yet.

There's a lot of bad that can be said about this movie, but I really don't think it's fair to do so. Much like how found-footage invites criticism due to its faux-real format, I think this movie is inherently resistant to criticism, because of its low-budget visual and sound design and the fact that I really think the director was purposely going for a movie as low-fi as this one. I don't think the characters' actions and motivations are supposed to be 100% true-to-life, and I think much of the action was done with a wink to the camera. Maybe I'm giving it too much credit, but this movie does something that I'm learning I value very highly in a movie (based on the movies I've given high and low ratings to so far)- it's having fun doing what it's doing. Its visual aesthetic is endearingly old, the effects are perfectly campy, and it's just a fun ride.

But don't get me wrong- I'm not just letting it slide on campiness alone. This movie hugely surprised me with how good it is at being suspenseful, when it's trying to. There are three points in the movie- a good one at the beginning, a great one in the middle, and then another good one at the end- where this movie does an AMAZING job of slowly ramping up the tension over a long, quiet scene. So many of the films I've watched this month take forever to get into the plot, and everything leading up to it is boring (presumably in favor of a "slow burn")- this movie doesn't need to do that, because it's clear the director knew how to set up suspense. You see the killer in its full glory like fifteen minutes into the film, but it doesn't matter, because twenty minutes later you're getting an incredibly long and slow suspense scene that keeps you on the edge of your seat. This movie is a bit of a roller coaster, crafted by someone who understands how many hills and how many falls a roller coaster needs to have.

This film is incredibly bizarre, and I personally saw the "twist" coming pretty far in advance, but all in all it was a fun romp and I think it accomplished exactly what it set out to do.

Overall rating: 8/10

Fun Trivia Bit From IMDB: Apparently, in the scene at the beginning where Duane is holding a wad of cash, that was the entire movie's budget at the time of filming!