John Caglione and Kevin Haney’s makeup effects are accomplished and professional and Henenlotter keeps the gore level wonderfully high. The revelation of Belial does not occur immediately, with Henenlotter slowly building it up with amusing and disturbing effect – food thrown into the basket to be gobbled up amid much slavering, a thief running away with a bloodied face. Henenlotter also achieves the touching at times, something that makes Basket Case all the more remarkable – like the extraordinary image of Belial sitting on his aunt’s knee as she reads to the two brothers. The film is appropriately dedicated to Herschell Gordon Lewis, the creator of the splatter film.

Frank Henenlotter went on to make the amazing Brain Damage (1987) and the lesser Frankenhooker (1990), followed by two sequels to Basket Case – Basket Case 2 (1990) and Basket Case 3/Basket Case 3: The Progeny (1991). Frank Henenlotter is a promising talent and his subsequent disappearance from the genre, all bar lending his name to a series of trash classic video releases, is one we are all the less off for. Eventually, Henenlotter returned to filmmaking with Bad Biology (2008), as well as the documentaries Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore (2010) and That’s Sexploitation! (2013).
 

Trailer here:-