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.” (read the rest of this shit…)
You know from the jump that BASKET CASE 2 (1990) is gonna have a little more money behind it than the first one, because it has both Troma and Shapiro Glickenhaus credits. That’s power right there. For those just joining it starts with footage from the end of part 1, with poor Duane and his murderous, surgically separated lump brother Belial hanging off a hotel sign, falling and splattering in front of screaming New Yorkers. We also get a news report from Times Square, describing Belial as “a small, grotesque monstrosity” and a “small, twisted deformity whose most startling feature is an unnervingly human face” and a “strange little being” that “might actually be human.”
On May 5th, 1983, future Superman actor Henry Cavill was born in St. Helier, Jersey. While he was in his crib, on June 17, 1983, the definitive cinematic Superman met Richard Pryor.
Boy, I hope I’m not trying people’s patience too much with this series. I believe 1985 is the earliest retrospective I’ve done previously, and I thought that went well, but what I’ve really realized looking at 1983 is how many of these movies feel just a little bit before my time. I remember being alive then, but I was only aware of a little kid-sized slice of pop culture. I was hearing all about Salacious Crum, but not 
