Thursday, January 17, 2013

Basket Full of Monster Babies

BASKET CASE 3 (1992)
D. Frank Henenlotter

SYNAPSE FILMS
DVD Only

Many people do not care for the last of the BASKET CASE trilogy. It is easy to see why with its odd shifts in tone, totally over the top cartoon like antics and a story that barely makes sense at best. I hated it when it came out in 1992. But for me the years have been kind to the movie and I am not nearly as hard on it as I once was. Calling it a good movie would be a lie. But calling it entertaining? That is about on track. 



The movie picks up shortly after the berserk ending of the second film. Dwayne has accidentally killed his girl Annie when he panicked at her mutation/offspring. He had attempted to sew Belial back onto his side to be back together with his brother. Belial has knocked up his equally monstrous girlfriend in the dumbest sex scene in movie history. So Part 3 starts with trying to wrap up all these messy plot threads. Everyone is still living with Granny Ruth and her menagerie of mutants. They discover they have to take Belial's monstrously pregnant girlfriend down south to a special Dr. friend who can facilitate the birth of what turns out to be a dozen or so Belial critters. 



Once in the south it becomes WALKING TALL meets the monsters with the occasional Jess Franco homage thrown in. The local Sheriff and his sexbomb daughter get involved jailing the freaks and trying to keep the Belial babies. So it is up to the gang to break them out and get revenge. Once Belial's offspring show up in a souped up metal contraption it gets serious. 



Basically this is like a Tex Avery cartoon with the monsters from the other films. Henenlotter has said that he basically doesn't like the movie much and only did it to fulfill a contract. But there is a certain off beat charm to it. I would say it works best as stoner cinema. Those who are very medicated will get the most out of it. 

The DVD is bare bones. But the transfer looks freaking gorgeous. 

Review © Andy Copp


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