Review: Basket Case 2 (1990)

Ok, so Basket Case 2 isn't as good, funny, or original as it's twisted and hilarious mom, but it is a damn sight for sore Full Moon'ed eyes. It's good enough that I'll be searching out part 3 in used VHS bins everywhere.

Picking up where the original left off, Duane and Belial are in the hospital and in deep shit. Just as they make their bloody escape, a freak collector/healer named Granny Ruth and her love-interest-in-the-making "daughter", Susan, arrive in a van and cart the boys off for some convalescence.

Granny Ruth's place is swarming with old sideshow freaks, which gives my favorite make-up man Gabe Bartalos room to run wild. He and Henenlotter concoct some truly horrifying deformities and it's with these muties that much of the movie's magic lay.

The plot is kind of standard revenge, and the pacing feels uneven. The acting is fine, though, with the highlight being Granny Ruth, who shows not a bit of the camp going on around her. She is sternly serious: loving to the freaks, and nasty to the normies who keep bugging her.

Belial gets in a few kills, but most of it is off-camera, or hidden stuff, the exception being the long kill in the bar. Not so much gory, this one. And, maybe that's a detriment. Although I liked BC2, I kept wishing it would hurry up.