The silly but grossly graphic world of the Siamese blob with teeth removed from the side of its hero (Kevin Van Hentenryck) has returned with the wacky grandmother of Van Hentenryck and van blob (Annie Ross) coming on to be the protectress of even more gross looking monstrosities, some that even can sing opera, and it's still amusing if rather forced. The film starts off where the previous one ended 8 years before, and once both Van Hentenryck and his former appendage/twin are broken out of the hospital, granny Ross begins to have a field day as she meets up with the proprietor of a side show who has even more of these critters, infuriating her because of how he exploits them. All it takes is a pop goes the weasel out of the infamous basket, and the side show operator is a piece of toast. That leads granny as the real monster manipulating the main monster while a reporter on her trail uncovers the truth.
I don't feel that a sequel to "Basket Case" was really necessary as there was an originality to the first film that made it special, and this seems to be just exploiting what it is fighting against being exploited. I found it twice as silly and therefore seemingly deliberately dumb, with Ross and Heather Rattray, two professional actors, added to the cast to give it what little name value it had. That takes away the charm of the amateur aspect of the original, and at times, the lack of originality or the overabundance of bizarness just makes it eye rolling even if the viewer is laughing while shaking their head at the preposterousness. And knowing that there would be more in this series, I had to just decide that this would be enough for me, just as I did with all those other horror films of the late seventies and early '80s that had countless sequels.
I don't feel that a sequel to "Basket Case" was really necessary as there was an originality to the first film that made it special, and this seems to be just exploiting what it is fighting against being exploited. I found it twice as silly and therefore seemingly deliberately dumb, with Ross and Heather Rattray, two professional actors, added to the cast to give it what little name value it had. That takes away the charm of the amateur aspect of the original, and at times, the lack of originality or the overabundance of bizarness just makes it eye rolling even if the viewer is laughing while shaking their head at the preposterousness. And knowing that there would be more in this series, I had to just decide that this would be enough for me, just as I did with all those other horror films of the late seventies and early '80s that had countless sequels.