Basket Case

Duane checks into a grimy Times Square hotel with a large locked basket. Inside is Belial, the malformed twin cut away from his side as a child, and the two of them are hunting the doctors who separated them.

Frank Henenlotter made it for around 35,000 dollars on the sleaziest blocks of early-80s 42nd Street, and the location is the film: the real fleapit hotels, peep shows and hustlers give it a texture no set could.

Belial is a lump of latex animated by stop motion and hand, and the crudeness is the charm; when the film wants him to rampage it switches to a shrieking claymation that is truly deranged.

It is a genuine grindhouse artefact and one of the definitive New York horror films.

Two sequels, both broader and gorier, neither with the first one's filth.