Basket Case Review

These are the kinds of movies that I would not mind paying for, only because they are a classic source of nostalgia and original horror movies. On first glance, this movie seemed like it dealt with an unruly tenant who, at night, kills people in his hotel, therefore he himself is the ‘basket case.’ For the most part, I was right, however, the young man carries around a wicker basket with something in it that loves to eat and kill people, but not just any people, select doctors and physicians. The young man and the ‘thing’ in the basket are teamed up to raise hell in NY. What I enjoyed about this film so much was the gore and the central theme of the movie. What I did not like was the acting. Though, despite one major flaw in this movie, I still enjoyed watching this great piece of horror film.

To start off, there is a lot of gore here. In fact, there are some key scenes in the movie that have been heightened due to the gore and the blood. However, the only downside to the gore is that it doesn’t look too much like blood. It looks false and it took me out of the film for brief second. The "jump out" scares in this movie are not in abundance, though the one thing that really freaked me out was the "thing" in the basket. Just the overall design and the way it looks scared me. Though, when it came to the thing attacking people, it wasn’t scary because I could see the line in which the two molds came together. It just seemed way too corny for my taste.

Next is the acting. Boy was the acting in this movie really bad, but not too bad, but still noticeable. Though the only good acting came from Kevin Van Hentenryck, who played Duane Bradley, who did a surprisingly amazing job performing his role. It wasn’t too over the top and when the situation calls for it, you can really see him put as much effort into his performance capabilities, and give us the illusion that he is loosing it. The ones that I especially had a hard time with would be Smith and Browne, who’s screams just got so annoying after a while. I never have been so annoyed with such an ear-piercing scream.

The theme was a very used theme throughout many of these films, but is still a very important and valuable theme that should be repeated. I won’t reveal the ending but this movie shows that true love, for family and friends, is a strength that nothing can match. It shows us that no matter how you look or no matter how you may feel about yourself, your family will always be there.

Overall, this movie was the exact kind of bad, cheesy B-movie that I needed to boost up my enthusiasm of horror movies. It’s one of those movies that you should only see once, but that one time will be the time of your life. The blood was prime, the acting was bad and it had a good theme attacked to it. This is the very definition of a good 80s monster movie; lots of blood, weak plot and bad performances. For me, it was a wild ride and it was worth it.