Basket Case | 1982 | USA | Frank Henenlotter

Gloriously funny and gruesome to boot, Frank Henenlotter’s dark scummy tale of two brothers hitting the big city for revenge ended up inspiring an equally zany franchise, including an additional two sequels. Doe-eyed Duane heads to the big city, checking into a dive hotel with only a mysterious basket in his possession. As he slowly makes some friends in the sprawling metropolis, his visits to various doctors become ever more suspicious when the physicians end up violently dead and his hotel room emanates a tantrum-like squealing. It soon transpires that Duane isn’t travelling alone; his brother is with him, and he’s far from ordinary. The fact that the Palace VHS was cut didn’t seem to matter to the police, who reportedly seized the film from various locations, notably in Hampshire, seemingly after being accidentally listed as a nasty on police-distributed memos.