Inspiration

The producer Edgar Ivans and I decided ‘Oh, let’s try and ma🏅ke a com𒆙mercial film.’ (laughs).

We were pretty naive. Thinking we could actually raisಌe money (laughs) which we failed to do on all counts.

But anyway, once we thought let📖’s make a commercial film, I thought let’s try and make a horror film.

But the pr𒐪oblem was I didn’t know what it was going to be.

The title

I was just sitting around one day playing with titles, and I was trying to come up with titles that hadn’t been🥂 used.

‘Psychopath, oh that’s been u🤪sed. This and that, oh that’s🦄 been used.’

Then I came up with the title , and the moment I thought of that, I just ha🔯d th♑is image of a monster in a basket leaping out like a jumping jack in the box.

It was the stupidest thing, but it was so visual I thought &ls✃quo;I can have a lot of fun with that.’ I knew it didn’t make any sense at all.

Having a creature in a wicker basket actuall💎y raised more questions than it answered, but I thought it&rs🐷quo;s a funny idea, it’s a crazy idea, it’s a cheap idea, but let’s roll with it and see what we can do.

The writing process

At the moment that I came up with the idea that Duane and Belial should be brothers, I was in Nathan’s hot dogs in Times Square, which was a huge fast food joint for hot dogs.♑ It had two floors. It was bigger than it needed to be.

And I was downstairs eating h🥃ot dogs when I thought of that🌄 detail.

🐬When I’m working on a script, I always carry a pen or pencil with me so I can write stuff down.

So suddenཧly I was writing dialogue and scenes on napkins.

And that’s what I came home with a whole bunch of mustard stained napkins and actually the dialogu♉e I wrote at Nathan’s that day is 🔯almost verbatim in the film when he tells Casey the hooker about his past.

It’s almost verbatim.

The audition process

I wanted Duane to be very anonymouᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚs in the crowd. I wanted him to be very ordinary.

But when I saw Kevin (Van Hentenryck), he was so tall he stood out in a crowd. And I thought, that&rsquo🌃;s better.

It makes him a little gawky and Kevin was able t🦋o play this wide-eyꦦed innocent almost to the point of that he’s maybe a little mentally off.

And I just thought he was great at ﷽tꦦhat. I just thought I had no trouble with that.

First day on set

The first day was a disaster. It was an absolute disaster, because we used a 16mm camera that we borrowed fro🅷m a friend, and I kept saying there is something wrong with the view-finder.

And no one was taking me very seriously, you know ‘What do you know about a camera?’ and we filmed the scene where the tenants come into the Irish guy’s room🔯 and find him dead – that was the s✱cene we were shooting.

And we got the footage back and sure enough everything was so off-centre it looked like I was aiming and cutting people off right at the 🍷chin and filming most of the ceiling.

And sure enou𒅌gh we found out the camera had the wrong viewpoint on it.

So we scrapped that weekend and started the next weekend and rܫeshot it. So that was a dreadful way to begin a film.

The effects

Oh, I didn’t know what I was doing.

So, there’s often times when you don’t know what you’re doing, when you eith♑er get creative or you’re in a kind of a mental bliss where you don’t realise just what the odds are against you.

We had two Belials, one was a very rigid puppet, but I r🐷ealised I could do stop motion with it, very bad stop motion, but🔜 I could still do it.

The other one was mo💞re of a hand puppet. I painted a glove red that looked ღlike a tongue and I treated him like a hand puppet.

So there were scenes in the film when he’s in the hotel 🍌room, and I am actually stuffed inside the dresser drawer, which was hollow, sticking my hand up with the red glov💜e on it.

I had the puppet sticking 🐈up out of the basket making it work, looking through a crack in the dresser drawers and a mirror across the way, so I could see which way I was pointing and what I was doing.

That’s about as home-grown crude at it gets. And I also did the awful stop-motion animation. And that was just te🌌rrible.

Favourite memory from the shoot

I have very few favourites.

One of the few days when we actually had a crew - about six people - was the day Belial is on top of🌱 the girl at the end.

Everybody thought that was great because she was naked, so everybody had a good time&𓆏hellip; until I put the blood all over her crotch, and everybody got so offended💫.

I think it looked worse when it was on ꦑthe set than it did on film. I didn’t care, but the crew was so outraged and angry that in protest they said they were going to walk out.

I said ‘Get out of here, leave, go away. I don’t give a shit🍒’.’

So it was only shot w꧂ith me, Kevin Van Henteꦑnryck and the producer Edgar Levins.

Edgar had to climb in the hole in the mattress and on a pole he’s making Belial bounce up and down on her. That&rsquoജ;s not how movies are supposed to be m๊ade.

Watching it with an audience

It’s alway🍸s terrible. You know it’s weird because in the case of Basket Case, the audience were laughing pretty much at all the bits that I was hoping they would laugh.

And yet all I was doingꦯ was thinking was ‘Oh they’re not going to laugh at the next one, they’re not going to laugh ෴at the next one.’

And af🐽ter 90 minutes of them liking it I remember thinking, ‘Well, next week’s audience won’t.’

So it’s a terrible experience. I learned real fast not to watch my films with an audience. I just go through hell with t🐻hat, but obviously audiences inexplicably liked it, so I ain’🔯t complaining.

Cult following

I really don’t know why Basket Case has such a big cult following. I’ve asked other people that. I don&rs💛quo;t really know.

I think if I had to guess, it’ꦜs funny. And I think the humour helps it a lot. I suppose if that story was ♔played seriously what do you have?

I ♍think it’s such a wacky idea and I think the comedy works. I don’t know. I ꩵhonestly don’t know.

I was mystified when it became you know 🅘and as soon as it started playing a💃t midnight it started selling out.

I couldn’t understand it and there were lines played at t♛he theatre I mentioned a few minutes ago, that’s four blocks away from me and it played 🤡there for two and half years. What the hell? So I never did understand it.

The fans

I&rsqu🐬o;m always struck at how polite a🍰nd respectful they are.

I w▨ould have thought t꧅he fans of my movies would be foaming at the mouth degenerates, but they’re not.

They൲’re really sweet and decent, and a few times I’ve always been t🐎hrown by that.

I remember the first time I came to London was for FrightFest , for Bad Biology a couple of years ago.

And ꧋I had assumed I had been forgotten and so had the films, because I was th🐎inking in terms of theatrical release.

So I didn’t think anybody would connect me with Basket Case .

And I’m in the theatre and all these kids are coming up to me ‘Can you sign this Basket Case box for me? Can you sign my Basket Case DVD?’

ౠI totally forgot there🎀 was a whole generation that grew up with these on home video.

So I was flabbergasted.

The remake

I’ve been asked about it making a re🥂make and really I don’t see what the point it. Leave i🦩t alone.

I’ꦫve had some serious requests, usually they’re from 💞people who want to pay me as little as possible because they figured they can do it low-budget too.

I already did the low budget version and if you’re going ❀to remake it at least do a big budget ve༒rsion.

And if you do, I don’t know, I just think if you did it once൩, why do iꦜt again?

I’m not a big fan of remakes, I’m not at alꦍl. Come up wit🍬h another crazy idea.

The Basket Case Trilogy is out now on Blu-ray