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Basket Case 2  (1990)
[+]
House of Freaks
Tagline(s):Look who's back!
 What's in the basket NOW!
 We're gonna need a bigger basket!
 We were cut apart AND NOW...we're together again!
 This time he's not alone.
 Belial Is Back! And This Time He's Brought Along a Few Friends!
 Look who's back...
Nomination Year: 1998
SYNOPSIS: Duane and his deformed, claymation, homicidal, ex-Siamese-twin brother Belial (see Basket Case) escape from their hospital room and flee the authorities. They eventually discover this bizarre halfway house for monsters, run by a kindly old lady with a thing for rehabilitating freaks. There, both brothers find acceptance -- and love. Boy, we really wish they hadn't. Banned in Finland. The U.S. wasn't so lucky.
Bryan Cassidy
Smithee Award Nominations
Oblivious
Maybe He's an Orderly Taking His Laundry Home with Him

Though under arrest, Duane escapes from the hospital with his blob of a deformed brother in a huge basket, and a half-dozen people fail to notice him. Even though his head is bandaged and he's limping along in a leg cast. One of those "I guess they had to escape or there'd be no movie" deals.

Smithee Award Winner! Stupidest-Looking Monster
Wackyland in the Attic

Grandma Ruth shows Duane and Belial their new home and introduces them to the family of freaks in the attic. It was really hard to choose one; all the attic-dwellers are exceedingly lame: moon-head (think "Mac Tonite"), bumpy-face, big-teeth, and others. But if you had to finger only one, the giant mouth-on-legs that sings opera would win hands -- er, tongue-down.

Best One-Liner
"Hey, These Inkblots All Look Like Me!"

At Grandma Ruth's Monster Therapy Clinic, Ruth has a session with Belial. Slowly and seriously, she says: "I understand that sadness. I understand your pain. But ripping the faces off people may not be in your best interest."

I don't know how she kept a straight face.

Smithee Award Winner! Acting Appropriately Stupid
I Must've Accidentally Hit "Zoom"

A nosy reporter has heard rumors of Ruth's freak farm and "sneaks" up to the attic for some pictures of the monsters. He pops his upper half up the trapdoor and snaps some photos. With each flash, it's clear (to us, anyway) the monsters are moving closer and closer toward him, but all he does is flash away with his camera until it's far too late.

Smithee Award Winner! Worst Picture
You See, Timmy, When Two Latex Monster Puppets Love Each Other Very Much...

Get out the shrimp fork before you watch this scene, folks, 'cause you won't be needing your eyes afterward. Belial does the nasty (and I do mean NASTY) with his female blob counterpart and unfortunately for sanity, nothing is left to the imagination, probably because human imagination can't begin to visualize anything close to the reality of seeing it. Moans, groans and (for lack of a better term here) "facial expressions" abound.

As if that weren't bad enough, we cut to Duane and Susan in the bedroom, about to follow suit, when suddenly Susan's freakish nature is revealed: She is three years pregnant, and has a grotesque hand puppet living in her abdomen. So Duane does the only sensible thing and pushes her out the window (actually, she flies out, like the hero in the classic Smithee Witchboard fall).

All in all, only one word describes the whole thing: "EEEEWWWWWWW!!!"

Directors
Director Claim to Fame
Frank Henenlotter Director of the Basket Case series and Frankenhooker, as well as Bad Biology
Cast
Actor Character Claim to Fame
Kevin Van Hentenryck Duane Bradley Pretty much just the Basket Case guy...and the guy with the basket in Brain Damage
Annie Ross Granny Ruth Plays the distinguished-looking old motherly type, usually. Had parts in Superman III, Short Cuts, and Throw Momma from the Train (not Momma). 
Heather Rattray Susan Was Jenny Robinson in The Wilderness Family series. 
Kathryn Meisle Marcie Elliot Mrs. Hallett in The Greatest Showman; Cecilia Kelly in You've Got Mail; small TV parts in the 90's and 2000s. 
Beverly Bonner Casey Casey in the Basket Case and Frankenhooker franchises (which I guess are in the same universe?). 
Judy Grafe News Woman Started out playing reporters in movies; ended up as Joyce Wrigley in TV's "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" franchise. 
Leonard Jackson Police Commissioner Was Pa Harris in The Color Purple, Harry Cupper on "Shining Time Station," Archie in Black Vampire, and the big screen's titular Super Spook
Brian Fitzpatrick Cop When he's not on daytime soaps, he seems to play lots of cops, on the big screen and small. 
Jason Evers Lou the Editor AKA "Herb Evers," he was in The Brain That Would Not Die, Claws, and Basket Case 2, which would be his final role. Was in a LOT of '60s-through'80s TV. 
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