If you’re going to watch a cheap tongue-in-cheek horror film then it might as well be this one, a classic midnight movie. Frank Henenlotter evidently didn’t like strange sympathetic creatures so what we have here is a young man Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) wandering around NYC with a basket. He holes up in a hotel where anyone that opens the wicker wonder gets theirs. It’s a while before the big reveal and we learn that the grotesque fleshy head within is a kind of monstrous Siamese twin removed from Duane’s side when they were 12, and Duane wants to find the doc that tore them apart (literally.) They really are simpatico – until Basket (what else can I call it?) sees Duane trying to get it on with a girl and goes after her. Then the former best buds are at each other’s throats – literally! If you’re gonna make a movie like this, then you better have the conviction that this has. ET it ain’t. There were two sequels but life is too short. Isn’t it?
