The world wasn’t always as fun or right-on as it is in 2018. This 1982 under-classic—from the golden age of cheap, shitty, ugly, violent, revolting, misogynistic splatter horror exploitation films made to have a brief theatrical run followed by a long cable afterlife—is a revenge story about a guy who keeps the mangled, living remains of his formerly conjoined twin in a basket and how the two of them execute violent retribution against the surgeon who had the gall to separate them. Everything about the film is gratuitous, and, despite its essential humorlessness, it’s almost hilarious in a sidelong sort of way. With films like Ready Player One and TV shows like Stranger Things and The Americans keeping the 1980s revival racket grinding along, it’s good for someone to be showing Basket Case, if only as a reminder of how vile that decade really was. by Sean Nelson