BASKET CASE 3 (advertised with the subtitle THE PROGENY, but that’s not on the actual credits) came a year after part 2 and continues in a similar vein. Once again, they knew exactly which “previously on” footage would make an incredible opening (Belial doggystyling Eve).

We’re still at Grannie Ruth’s place. She re-separated the twins after Duane’s little self-surgery, and luckily she has a padded cell and straitjacket for him. (Where does she get the money for this stuff? Is she eligible for grants?) Duane has been spaced out for months, giving Grannie an excuse to straight up tell him/us what’s going on now: Belial has gotten Eve pregnant, and “no one’s exactly sure what will come out of her,” so they’re all getting on a school bus for a road trip to  Georgia, because some guy named Uncle Hal (Dan Biggers, MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL) is “the only doctor I’d trust with a delicate case like this.”

Dr. Hal’s special qualification is that he has an extremely deformed son named Little Hal (Jim O’Doherty, later a writer on 3rd Rock From the Sun). Little Hal stays secluded but to this little town’s credit the sheriff (Gil Roper, “Electrician,” PET SEMATARY II) is protective and supportive of the family. He even brings over old junk that Little Hal uses to create automated contraptions like a machine that rolls around and delivers coffee.

The new female lead for Duane to interact with is the sheriff’s daughter Opal (Tina Louise Hilbert, no other credits). He first spots her walking down the sidewalk drinking a can of Jolt! through a straw, so she’s a dream girl. Sort of the premise of the character is that she’s horny and into S&M, but she still comes across as innocent because she’s so tolerant of Duane’s weirdo behavior. But then she’s not nice about his scars.

Duane’s main conflict in this one is that for some reason Grannie keeps putting off letting him see Belial, making him so crazy that he decides to turn himself in for the murders in hopes he and his brother will be reunited while in custody. It would be cool if this turned into a prison movie with the Bradleys in the yard together, Belial lifting weights, getting a tear drop tattoo, leading a prison gang, etc. Anyway the cops just treat Duane as a looney until they recognize him from a tabloid called Judge & Jury: America’s Bravest News and realize if they find Belial they can claim the million dollar reward “for whereabouts of Times Square freak twins.” So they sneak around Uncle Hal’s and worry that the freak visitors are “some kind of weird satanic cult.”

This time Henenlotter took on a co-writer, Robert Martin. They had written FRANKENHOOKER together, and Martin was the original editor of Fangoria. Otherwise it seems to be made by all the same people, most importantly makeup effects creator Gabe Bartalos, who gets even more ambitious this time. This is what Little Hal looks like:

I gotta be honest, I was very disappointed to see that Grannie Ruth’s freaks were all back. I think they’re slightly improved, because some of them can move their mouths (it’s kind of funny the way Duane can understand their muttering, like Han talking to Chewbacca). But I still find them more annoying than compelling, and I was not charmed by their terrible musical number (suddenly they have saxophones and trombones, though the song is clearly made with cheesy keyboards). During the scenes on the bus this starts to feel like the not as good version of GARBAGE PAIL KIDS: THE MOVIE.

Luckily Eve giving birth won me over. When her water breaks it’s like a fire hydrant letting loose. Then out comes a baby that’s just like a miniature Belial. And then there’s a twin. Then another. And they keep coming, like she has a clown car for a womb. Meanwhile, Daddy is locked in his basket dreaming of being on a round bed with two naked human babes caressing him, sucking on his fingers and reciting love sonnets. It’s a tangent but I mean, that type of shit is what justifies making a BASKET CASE 3.

The cops end up getting ahold of the babies, and the unexpected part is that they love having a basket of deplorables around, they find them adorable. But obviously Belial shows up and again, a great time is had by all except the cops who have their heads twisted around, or pulled right off, or their heads get squeezed and their eyeballs pop out like it’s FRIDAY THE 13TH 3D. I wonder if they thought about this scene at all when they made MALIGNANT? I did mention BASKET CASE in my MALIGNANT review, Gabriel is definitely an artistic descendant of Belial, but I’d forgotten that part 3 also had a crazy police station massacre.

When I saw what the climax was I thought yes, of course they had to do BASKET CASE 3. Because it turns out the whole deal with Little Hal making those inventions was to establish that he would have the ability to create a, uh… Mecha-Belial? I don’t think they give it a name. But it’s his version of “Get away from her, you bitch!”

It was fun to revisit this strange trilogy. It makes me a little nostalgic for a bygone era, but more for the attitude of these types of movies than their specific qualities. I wouldn’t say the BASKET CASEs have “aged poorly” in their values, just in that things like the cutesy squeaky-voiced freak characters seem cheesy and the satire of Geraldo and Weekly World News feels hacky and stuff like that.

But there’s a playful rebelliousness to these movies – creative people letting their imaginations for grotesquery go wild, and trying to get a reaction out of us. They are a celebration of the ugly and misshapen and mistreated. The weirder you look the more the movies will glorify you, and forgive even your very serious transgressions. But they won’t be fond of you if you’re a dumb cop or a snooty unethical doctor or somebody who’s grossed out by oddity.

Henenlotter would probly claim to not be a very good director – in the long run he’s had more of a career curating and restoring exploitation movies through Something Weird Video than as a filmmaker. But sometimes having something unique to share in an art form is way more valuable than being able to execute it at the highest level. It’s not just MALIGNANT – without the spark of Henenlotter’s creations I’m not sure the Chucky franchise or the best picture nominated classic THE SUBSTANCE would exist in quite the ways they do, and that would be unacceptable. But even having had that influence, you watch these films now and it doesn’t feel like there’s anything like them. I appreciate these raging blobs of rubbery weirdness Henenlotter let loose into cinema history, and our imaginations. Here’s to Belial and family.